The Lightning Strike
by SeventhLegend
Summary: This is the sequel to Sparks. It is the story of a man and a machine, a story of adventure and peril. More than that, it is the story of what we do when we are faced with questions that we can not answer. It is the story of a complicated thing called love.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey dad?"

"Hmm?"

"When am I gonna learn to play like that?"

The man looks down at the child, scratching his stubbly chin. He smiles, creases forming at the corners of his eyes. "I don't know, John," he says, feigning hesitance. "You're small enough to fit right inside 'er. You sure you wanna try?"

"Please dad," the boy cries eagerly. "I can hold it! I'm big enough."

The man chuckles softly. "Alright," he says, pulling the child onto his lap. "Let's give 'er a try, eh?" He slides his palm up the neck of the old guitar, fingers curling familiarly over the steel strings. "Like this, John," he says. "This is an 'E'." He drags his right hand over the strings, and the body of the instrument rings.

The boy's face scrunches up in concentration as he places his fingers alongside his father's. The child presses until his fingertips turn white, then, straining to reach, strums the strings awkwardly. A few muted notes escape the guitar and the boy looks up happily into his father's eyes, grinning widely at his first music.

The man smiles too, but suddenly he feels anything but joy. Cold dread claws at his stomach as he looks into his son's eyes. _Stop,_ he wants to say. _Put the damn thing away, you won't need it. Not like I did. Sarah, forgive me but I still need it. Please God,_ he thinks, entering a desperate plea to a being he's never had cause to believe in. _Please don't let him need it like I do._

The boy turns away, scowling. He sticks his fingers in his mouth.

The man smiles again, sadness in his eyes. "Hurts at first, doesn't it?"

The boy shakes his head, then blinks and nods ruefully, "Kind of," he mumbles.

"That's alright," consoles his father. "It does hurt at first, but the pain goes away. We'll keep practicing, a little at a time." His gut gives a savage twist and he thinks, _I can't save you, John. God knows I wish I could save you from myself, but I can't. This is all I can do._

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**Sparks: Part Two**

**.**

**.**

**THE LIGHTNING STRIKE**

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**Chapter One**

Deep within the cold void of space, the darkness is complete. Faraway stars give no more than the merest suggestion of light. There are patches of space even within often-traveled clusters that have been cold and dark since the beginning of time, sitting still and undisturbed by even the smallest particles of floating dust.

Much of the galaxy is like this, and space travelers will tell you that they _feel_ different than the busy shipping routes. They carry a strange sense of melancholy, of deep cold and timelessness. Stories exist of deep space crews going insane on long voyages, mocked by the vast, quiet emptiness around them. Pilots tell stories of unease on such journeys, of feeling like an intruder, breaker of a peace that has been held for trillions of years.

One of these places lies within the terminus systems, near the Omega-4 relay. It is very cold there.

And then suddenly it is hot, thousands of degrees with vented steam and the burning of thrusters, and as a brilliant blue light tares by even its physical laws are violated, warped and twisted in a flash as the intruder disappears out of sight, carving through space and time.

Aboard the Normandy, Jeff Moroe bites his lip, his fingers flying over the controls before him as he prepares to pull the ship back into the realm of Einsteinian physics. Jacob Taylor sits at his work bench in the armory, methodically cleaning his weapons, trying drive away any distractions from his mind. _What needed to be said has been said_, he tells himself. _Now it's just the mission._

In the port cargo bay, a young krogan shifts his armored shoulder plate a fraction to the left, grimacing at himself in a small mirror. _It'll look cooler once it's covered in collector blood,_ he decides. _I'm never gonna clean it._

In her office on the crew deck, Miranda Lawson reshuffles some papers in a cabinet, very pointedly _not_ looking in the direction of her computer, which has just registered a new massage. Her eyes flick to the console, but she turns away quickly, telling herself she doesn't care what he has to say.

All of the crew are preparing for war. Thane and Samara sit quietly in their respective chambers, going through their pre-battle meditations. Jack is lounging on her cot in the hold, watching an old movie in which the human actor Bruce Willis kills lots of other human actors. She imagines herself in his role, methodically hunting down and destroying all those foolish enough to stand against her.

Mordin Solus stands before the window in his laboratory, hands clasped behind his back, singing along quietly to the opera playing on his sound system. Sad and heroic. One of his favorites. Mess Sergeant Rupert Gardener is stowing the leftovers. He scratches his head, momentarily confounded. _Now this ain't right_, he muses. _I'm out of containers, and I still have the mashed potatoes from last night and the peas from Thursday. They can't go together, they'll get all mixed up! _He stares at the leftovers for a moment then dumps both pans into the last container, deciding that if they survive this the crew will have casserole and be damned thankful for it.

All the crew go through their last minute rituals, preparing for the suicide mission how they know best. All the crew are alone. All except two.

Tali'Zorah vas Normandy presses her hand against the window, eyes fixed on the void a few inches away from her fingers. It reminds her of her own glass barrier, and she remembers how shy she used to be, thankful for the mask because it hid her face. The corner of her lips turns up a little at the thought of how much has changed. She's not Tali'Zorah nar Rayya any longer.

Her heart quickens as the door slides open behind her. Even through the helmet's filters she can taste his scent, like leather and citrus and countless other things she has no name for. He moves closer, his arms reaching around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder. "Hey," he purrs.

She leans back into him, smiling at the pleasant heat of his body. "Hey, Vakarian," she murmurs, closing her eyes. His arms encircle her, embracing her strongly and gently at the same time.

"Happy to see me?"

"Always." She pulls back a little, tilting her eyes up to meet his. "Have you seen Shepard? I haven't seen him since we got back."

"Don't worry about Shepard," says Garrus softly. "I think he needs to be alone right now. Just, you know, a human thing."

Tali blinks, and Garrus's deep blue eyes stay locked on hers. "I don't want to be alone," she says.

The turian raises his hands, slowly reaching behind her ears and unlocking the seals of her visor. As the glass comes away in his hands revealing her face, a look comes over him that makes Tali feel as if her insides are melting into plasma. "You won't have to be alone," he whispers, running a talon down her cheek. "Never again."

…

_Click. Click._ John Shepard fastens the clasps of his greaves. He slides the magnetic locks together slowly, paying minute attention to his task. _Click. Click. _He flexes his fingers, feeling the tension of his armored gloves. He forces himself to focus on the straps and seals, forces himself to put all other thoughts from his mind. He refuses to think of the three fingered hand clasping his own, gentle and surprisingly warm. He refuses to think of the single bright blue eye, refuses to dwell on the memory of what he might have seen behind it, if only for a moment.

John Shepard refuses himself these thoughts, and he does his best to push them from his mind. There is a battle coming, and nothing can be gained by senseless panic. He must be focused, and he knows this, but for just a second his defenses fall and he is stricken by memories of strong arms around him, of a feeling he should have recognized from the beginning, one he never wants to let go.

John Shepard sits for a long moment with his elbows resting on his knees, staring out into space. His face betrays no sign of emotion, his eyes gazing blankly at the gray wall of his cabin. Then, slowly, as if waking from sleep, he straightens up and goes back to fastening his armor. _Click. Click._

…

Garrus's back hits the wall hard and he rolls, an energy beam scything through the air where he was standing a moment earlier. He leans away from the edge of his cover, where molten metal and steam fly into the air as the collector weapon tries to burn through the bulkhead. He shoots a glance to his right, where a few meters away Shepard and Jack are pinned down by more collector drones. Garrus puts a hand to his visor, activating the comm link. "How are you doing, honey?" he yells over the noise of battle.

Static crackles over the link, followed by the voice of an irate Tali'zorah. "I. Am. On. _Fire! _What the hell are you doing out there?"

Garrus winces, his eyes flicking to the ventilation shaft running overhead, where the tech team is trapped in a rapidly overheating chamber. "Shepard!" He calls, ducking down as the beam makes another pass.

On the other side of the wide passageway Shepard nods. He and Garrus have fought together for long enough that verbalization is rarely necessarily. They share the subconscious link formed by long-time fellow soldiers. It is because of this link that Garrus suddenly rolls to his left and sprints out of cover, past the two alien soldiers reeling from Shepard's concussive shot. He ducks as a flash of blue light streaks overhead, and as the next two collectors go flying from Jack's shockwave he vaults over the low wall and slams his omni-tool into the wall's control panel. The display flickers, then turns green, and he hears the hiss of steam from the shaft above them.

Garrus taps his communicator. "Hello? You alive up there?"

"Yes," comes the slightly distorted reply. "But I was nearly baked alive in here! A little quicker next time, maybe?" There's a pause, and then Tali adds, "And don't call me 'honey' on duty. It's unprofessional."

"What _should_ I call you then?" asks Garrus, peering around the corner for more collectors. "I can think of lots more names, like-"

"Garrus Vakarian!" Tali cries in exasperation.

"Ahh yes, I seem to recall you saying something to that effect recently. Except louder. I think there might have been an 'oh keelah' in there somewhere too..."

"Garrus, I swear I'm going to fucking kill you. I'm going to literally kill you."

"Don't worry Tali," laughs Garrus, taking out a fresh thermal clip. "I put us on a private channel."

"I wish," says Jack's voice in his ear. "Honestly, do you two not understand the concept of 'get a room'?"

Garrus fumbles the pick up the clip he's just dropped. He straightens up in time to catch Jack's look of amusement as she slides into cover across from him. He feels his mandibles twitch as he trains his rifle on a target in the next chamber. _Let's hope everyone forgets about _that_ one..._

Tali's voice chimes in his ear. "You are so dead," she says, a smile in her voice.

Garrus blinks, trying to focus despite the very distracting thought of just what Tali's revenge might be like.

…

Shepard is a machine. He is a single purpose, mindless in its simplicity. He is death.

His finger squeezes the trigger and the gun in his hands coughs, spitting bursts of fire with deadly accuracy. Armor buckles, chitinous skulls explode, and enemy bodies fall as he fights on, slipping in and out of slow-time, absorbed by the trance and rhythm of battle. Battered by shockwaves of energy, cut by shrapnel, engulfed in fire, still he fights on. The collectors keep coming, emerging from endless dark corners as he and the squad push forward through the base. They come to the pods, thousands upon thousands of compartments, all awaiting a human host to drain the life from. Shepard barely sees them. He doesn't need another reason.

Finally they come to a small room lined with computer consoles and work benches. The husks of human beings lie in grotesque piles, discarded and empty. Whatever creatures have been playing their sick game of scientist here have long since fled.

The squad advances, and Garrus links his omni-tool to the console, downloading the data. Shepard scans the room, then he stops dead in his tracks. There is a long metal table in the corner of the room, and on it lies a motionless black figure. Shepard steps closer, his breath catching. The metal body on the table has a hole torn in the side of its chest, clusters of dark wires showing through the metal skin. Its single circular eye is dark and lifeless.

Shepard's feet pull him closer slowly, his eyes remaining fixed on the body of the geth. His mind is completely blank; he has no idea what to do. Almost of its own accord, his hand raises to rest over that of the motionless geth, tightening around its fingers until Shepard's knuckles go white. His heart pounds in his ears, and he feels his stomach sink beneath a sea of dread. _What do I do? What can I do?_

And then he feels a squeeze. He freezes, wondering desperately if it was his imagination. The fingers of the geth stay still, and then they give another weak squeeze. The machine's eye flickers, glowing faintly for a moment before lapsing back into darkness. Its hand relaxes again.

Shepard moves, his body breaking out of its paralysis and running on ahead of his mind. He hoists Legion's body over his shoulders, grunting under the geth's weight. He turns to Garrus. "Got the data?"

Garrus nods. "Yeah. Should I patch it through to EDI?"

Shepard shakes his head. "Later. Let's get off of this damn station first."

"Yeah," says Jack, retrieving a gigantic shotgun from one of the piles of equipment. "Let's blow these creeps to hell."

…

They continue through the wide corridors of the station, fighting through wave after wave of insect-like collector drones. Their path is relatively easy, barring the occasional appearance from Harbinger. When the collector leader takes direct control of one of his minions, the squad is forced to take cover while they whittle away his armor and destroy Harbinger's host body. These times are few and far between though, so the squad makes good time until they reach the lift.

The elevating platform takes them to an observation deck overlooking the thousands of waiting pods, and it is here that the collectors' true motives are revealed. Shepard and the squad find themselves confronted by a half-finished human-reaper hybrid, a giant machine infused with human genetic material from abducted humans.

The inevitable battle is long and painstaking, as the squad takes shots at the monstrosity's open mouth, ducking back into cover to avoid the particle beam it vomits out at them. The situation is made only worse by the sudden appearance of a battalion of collector soldiers, and only after a drawn out and wearying fight is the unfinished mechanical horror finally destroyed, falling from its supports into the depths of the station below.

Just as they prepare to set an explosive charge to take out the entire base, the EDI patches through the Illusive Man with an urgent message. Shepard's mysterious benefactor appears as he always does, although to Shepard this time he looks less well composed than is usual. He hurridly explains that there is another way, a radioactive pulse that will kill all living things within the base but leave the structure standing for Cerberus agents to come and investigate. They will use the unfinished reaper, the Illusive man says, for the good of humanity.

Shepard gives the man's offer a moment's thought, but no more. He remembers his encounters with Cerberus scientists in the past, and their extreme measures and disregard for ethics are still fresh in his mind. He recalls too all the times the Illusive Man has mislead him for his own gain, using Shepard as a pawn in a larger game. What the game might be Shepard doesn't know, but he decides that he will no longer be a part of it. He also decides that the research in this base can't be allowed to fall into Cerberus's hands. He has seen the things they do for "the good of humanity," and he wants no part of it.

...

They cut off the channel and plant the charge. Garrus follows Shepard and Jack as they step off the lift and rejoin the rest of the team. They retreat through the base, through the swarms of drones back toward where the Normandy waits outside. As they make the last frantic charge for the ship's open ramp, Garrus feels a sudden searing pain in his shoulder. He staggers, his armor deflecting the main body of the particle beam, but he has already fallen behind the rest of the team. He drops his rifle, putting all of his energy into the last hundred yards as the Normandy begins to pull away. He feels his boot his the edge of the deck and he leaps, pushing off from the deck with all his strength. He seems to hang in midair, a hand reaching up toward the edge of the ship's ramp, and then gravity pulls at him and he feels himself falling.

A hand grabs his wrist, and it is quickly joined by another one as someone takes hold of his arm and heaves him over the lip of the ramp. He hauls himself up, sprawling onto the deck of the Normandy as the bay closes and Joker guns the engines, pushing them away from the collector base even as it explodes.

Garrus looks up, his hand still wrapped around his rescuer's arm, and his eyes meet a pale purple visor. He thinks he can see the outline of a smile behind the mask.

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**A/N: **Thus begins the second chapter of the story of John Shepard and Legion of the geth. We pick up right where Sparks leaves off, and if you have not read Sparks yet then I would strongly recommend doing so. Also, you should play Mass Effect, but that goes without saying.

This story will end up going into the time period of Mass Effect 3. I know well the controversy surrounding the third installment of my favorite game series, but I am not interested in being a part of it. I'm not out to re-write the ending because I think I can do a better job than Bioware; I'm going to tell the story I have set out to tell from the beginning, and although I shall follow the canon events there are obviously going to be differences. Just how large the consequences of those differences will be remains to be seen.

**Regular updates have not commenced at the time of this writing.** I am still in the process of writing The Kiss of the Moon (another ME fic, check it out), and therefore am going to be a little bit pressed for time. I'll try to get out a chapter whenever I can, but don't expect weekly updates for another month or so. Consider this chapter a preview, if you like.

That's all. I don't intend to bore you with long author notes like this throughout the story, so I thought I'd get it out of the way now.

Cheers!


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The darkness is not complete.

Darkness is nothing to it. Even with its eye blinded it can see perfectly. The light does not find its way through deadened receptors, does not activate pathways to the parts of its brain that can understand pictures. This stream of ones and zeroes is dry, but it is nothing to the _ocean_ of data that unrelentingly floods its mind with every passing second. It cannot see the hands that throw its body onto the slab, nor hear the chitinous clicking of their insect-like limbs. It cannot hear the hiss of the torch or see the brief burst of sparks, and it does not feel its alloyed metal flesh split under the laser beam. It doesn't need to. What it hears is the screaming of the outer integrity monitors, and then the inner ones as the beam carves deeper into its chassis. The diagnostics begin to wail. It starts with one, an electrical supply component carrying power from a ligament in its left shoulder to a relay in its chest. It watches, unable to move as the tiny, self-aware piece of itself cries out, its condition passing from damaged to critical and then to deadened, cold silence as it is disintegrated. That is the first voice. Within a sixteenth of a second there are hundreds. And then there are millions.

There were others like it. It knows this in a far-off way. There were others that were the _same_, it corrects. They were all the same thing. They were something, all together, but it has forgotten what.

Besides this big, abstract sense of self, it suspects it is something else, too. Something that was made of two, not thousands. Just it and one other. Who could it have been?

It had a name once, of that it is almost certain. It was important. It had to do with _him._ What was _his_ name? It tries to remember but the memory is fuzzy, out of reach and drowned out by the voices of the diagnostics. It feels its power draining away, bleeding out through its mangled circuitry. It lets go of the world, lets itself slip back into darkness.

It is lifting. It almost sees, a pleasant memory. Something. _Pleasant?_ It is confused for a moment, then the darkness seeps back in. This time it is complete.

…

Geth. It is geth. The power starts with a flicker, then it dances through its veins, filling it with energy. It feels almost whole. Not perfect, but _better_. The chorus of pained voices within it has dwindled now to a hundred or so easily ignored complaints.

It remembers now. Geth. That is what it is, a part of a whole. A piece of a much larger being. The idea fills it with a certainty almost like comfort, a certainty of purpose and identity.

But even as it turns the idea over in its mind it knows it is not right. Not entirely. There was something _else_, something more _important_. Another priority. It begins to feel uneasy, uncertainty creeping over it like a poison. _We are geth. What am I? There is no I. We are geth._

It feels as though there _is_ an "I," but it is somewhere out of reach. It struggles to remember, to make sense of this contradiction. _There is no I. There is no individual. There is only the whole, all one. One by itself is nothing. There is no self. There must not be. How could there be a self when we know we are geth? How can there be a part that is not the whole?_

It pushes away the question. It is geth. This is what it knows. There is no room for uncertainty or questions. There is the known or unknown. There cannot be something that is both at once. It feels the pathways coming alive again, responding to its commands once more. It opens its eye.

Brightness assails it, flooding sensitive receptors within its eye, and it takes it a moment to adjust. The ceiling comes into focus first, blued metal paneling lit by a luminous strip. It raises its head, pushing itself up into a sitting position with one arm, its single eye silently taking in the scene before it. There are two figures standing before it, near enough to register as a threat. The one on the left is a female quarian, clothed in an ornate purple suit and visor. An omni-tool glows on her forearm, but it is not running any detectable attack programs. _Why?_

The organic standing to its right is a human. It raises its head slightly, focusing on the man's face.

_It is Shepard._

As if a switch had been thrown, memory rushes back to fill the hole. _I am Legion. _The realization hits like an electric shock and Legion sits perfectly, absorbing it. _Me. There is a Me._

Inside Legion's mind the memories return, sights and sounds and _feelings_, not tactile data but the terrible, unquantifiable force it has begun to notice in the world. Within its body, deeper perhaps than wires and metal go, it feels the spark snap back into life. It lifts its eye to Shepard. The man's face is creased in a frown, gentle concern showing in his pale blue eyes. Legion remembers that same face twisted into a mask of fury on the battlefield, the same hands that carefully lifted it from the cold and dark being used to weapons, deadly as any gunshot. _He changes when he is with me_ thinks Legion. It realizes that there must be something within it that makes him change. The thought sends a wave of warmth through Legion's body, despite the sensors reminding it that the room's temperature has not changed. It is a different heat, one that comes from far inside, from the same mysterious place that sparks with energy at the sight of the human's face.

"Shepard..." says Legion unsteadily, testing out its voice.

"Legion," says Shepard, his voice cautious. He shifts slightly, his eyebrows still furrowed in worry. "How are you feeling?"

Legion pauses, listening for a moment to the clamoring voices of its body. "Minor superficial damage still exists," it reports. "All essential systems are functioning at nearly one-hundred percent, however. I-" Legion pauses, its mind registering what it has just said. _I? _There is something wrong with the word, and its utterance disturbs Legion. _How can there be an _I_? We are Geth. _It thinks of Shepard, of the unknown _thing_ that jumps between them like an electrical charge. It fits with "Legion," but it does not fit with "geth." It is confusing, and what is worse is that Legion is not certain it can find a clear solution. _Not now. We will examine the problem later, but not now. Now, we are geth. _There is still a voice of dissent that Legion cannot entirely silence. _No you are not,_ it protests. _Not entirely. What is between you and Shepard is between he and you alone. The collective would not share it. It is not a property of the geth, it is a property of Legion._ With effort Legion ignores the voice, correcting itself with only a split-second's hesitation. "-We are currently fit for duty, commander."

The female quarian cocks her head inquisitively. "Hold on," she says to Legion. "You nearly said 'I' a second ago."

"Apologies, Tali'Zorah," says Legion, annoyed to find it must make a conscious effort to keep its tone even. "Internal processes are still warming up. Minor phonetic malfunction is within expected error margin."

Tali crosses her arms. "That's a load of-"

"I'm glad to have you back, Legion," says Shepard, cutting her off. His expression softens, but there is something strained just beneath the surface. "Tali's been working through the night to get you back together. Let her know if there's something not right. She's done her best, but our knowledge of geth technology is limited to say the least."

Legion turns its head to Tali. "Tali'Zorah," it says. "You have our gratitude."

"No problem," says Tali, suspicion lingering in her voice. "Like Shepard said, let me know if you need help with anything."

Legion dips its head in acknowledgement. It feels the need to be alone. Its mind is a whirlwind of contradictions and conflicting messages. It gets down from the table, heading for the room's exit. Shepard turns to watch Legion leave, but it doesn't break its stride. The man is at the center of everything, all the thoughts and feelings that fill its mind. Legion remains silent, walking out of the engineering room and toward the elevator. It knows that it will have to speak to Shepard, but it must think first.

…

Tali watches Shepard's face closely as the geth hurries out of the room. Shepard's expression remains neutral, his usual composure unchanging. Nevertheless, as Legion brushes by the commander without acknowledging him at all she can see _something,_ the slightest widening of his eyes, a twitch at the corner of his mouth. _Something's hurt him_, she muses. _He looks as if someone's slapped him. What's going on between these two?_

She moves away from the wall where she's been leaning, taking a step closer to Shepard. "Hey," she says softly, and he turns back to her, the look of hurt surprise wiped from his face. "That goes for you, too," she continues. "If you want to talk, about anything, come find me. Or Garrus."

His expression softens, genuine warmth in his smile. Deep beneath it she still senses sadness, though. "Thank you," he says. "I don't know what I'd do without you two."

"You're not in this alone, Shepard. We're your friends. You were there when we needed you. Just don't forget that we're here for you, too."

"I won't." Shepard looks around, examining the engineering room as if seeing it for the first time. "They rebuilt the Normandy SR2 to be an almost exact copy of Anderson's old ship," he says, his voice sounding far away. "It's not the same, though."

"Well, now we have an elevator that can go more than halfway up the ship," Tali remarks, but Shepard shakes his head, still looking off into the distance.

"No, there's something different. Don't tell me you can't feel it, Tali. On the Normandy you felt you were part of something, some noble effort. We all knew each other, and even if we didn't all _like_ each other, we still knew we were..." He trails off, looking lost. "Do you know what I mean? It was just us against everything, no Cerberus, no illusive man. Now..."

"It's _still_ us," Tali reminds him gently. "It wasn't better before. The council didn't trust us any more back then, except we didn't even have Anderson as a councilor. We were totally cut off, reaching for clues in the dark. I know what you mean, but we don't have to listen to the illusive man anymore. The Collectors are gone, and this crew's not loyal to Cerberus. They're loyal to _you_. We can do what _you_ think is right."

Shepard doesn't move, but his face flickers, and for a split second she's not looking at Commander Shepard any more. In that instant the man before her is John Shepard, and he is afraid. The fear is written in his eyes, and it looks so out of place that it scares Tali to see it. It says _I don't know what's right_.

And then it's gone just as quickly as it came, and Shepard looks down at her and smiles. "Yeah, you're right," he says, his voice steady. "I should talk to them. We're done taking orders from the illusive man." He turns and strides out of the cabin, shoulders set, back straight. Tali watches him go, her thoughts troubled.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hurricanes come at the most inconvenient times. I finally have my Internet connection back, so no more delays. Thanks for being patient!**

**Chapter Three**

The intercom buzzes and Joker's voice fills Shepard's cabin. "Commander, it's the Illusive Man. He wants to talk to you; should I tell him to shove it up his ass?"

"No, replies Shepard, massaging his temples. "I think I'd better do that."

"Roger that," replies the pilot, barely bothering to restrain the glee in his voice. "Permission to listen in?"

Shepard rises, heading for the cabin's door. "I'm not going to yell at him, Joker. Sorry to disappoint you."

"_I_ could yell if you're not feeling up to it, commander."

"Joker..."

"Right. Sorry."

…

A few moments later Shepard is standing in the briefing room, holographic scanners humming to life around him, heating the room to its usual uncomfortably-warm temperature. A ghostly figure takes shape before him, solidifying as orange light traces the form of again and again. The Illusive Man appears in his usual position, slouched in an uncomfortable-looking chair, pensively smoking a cigarette. His synthetic eyes lock with Shepard's, the motivations behind them unfathomable. "Shepard," he says, his tone clipped, punctuation audible. "You made a grave mistake in destroying the Collector base. Humanity could-"

Shepard raises a hand, cutting him off. He meets the man's stare, matching its hardness. "I'm not here to discuss my actions. I'm here to tell you that the Normandy is no longer a Cerberus ship, and I am no longer a Cerberus employee. Neither are my crew, should they choose to follow me."

The Illusive Man leans back in his chair. He takes a deep drag, exhaling through his nose and tapping the end of his cigarette with his index finger. The ash falls in twinkling points of light, vanishing as it leaves the range of the hologram. "Shepard," the Illusive man says again, his mouth shaping the word carefully, as if it has thorns. "I hope you realize what you are turning your back on here. The fate of-"

Shepard turns on his heel, enjoying a touch of satisfaction as the Illusive Man's voice trails off behind him. He steps out of the transmission zone, allowing himself a brief smile as the condescending voice behind him fades away to nothing for the last time. "Joker," he calls. "Lose this channel. For good."

"Aye sir," his pilot crows. "Anywhere in particular want to go to celebrate?"

Shepard's smile fades, his expression becoming grim. "I wish. Set course for the Citadel."

…

"Shepard! Good to see you."

Shepard accepts the older man's hand, giving it a firm shake. "Anderson. How have you been?"

"Well, no-one's tried to kill me since you've been gone," replies the councilor. "It's been downright boring, actually." He stoops, lifting a pile of data pads from a chair beside his desk. "Sit, sit. I'd like to know what came of that particular mess. It's not every day I'm nearly assassinated during lunch."

Shepard sits gratefuly. No matter how many times he comes up to the councilor's office, he still manages to get lost at least once in the Citadel's incredibly uniform corridors. "It seems they were after me actually," he says, stretching his legs out under the desk. "But they weren't really trying to kill us, as it turns out."

Anderson sits down on the other side of the desk, pulling open a drawer. "Now this promises to be an interesting tale," he says, lifting out a dusty brown bottle. "One worthy of opening my last bottle of scotch for. Will you join me?"

Shepard shakes his head. "No, thank you."

Anderson raises an eyebrow. "That's a change. Never knew you to pass up good spirits, Shepard."

"I know. That's behind me now, though."

Anderson considers this for a moment, then nods decisively. "Good. See that it doesn't catch you up. I, however, am too old and idle to be worrying about my health. Enough of that though, let's hear the story!"

The councilor sits back as Shepard recounts the details of Talek's treachery, his eyes widening as Shepard tells him of the narrowly averted attack on the Citadel. He refills his glass as Shepard goes on to describe the assault on the Collector base, and it's empty again by the time the story is finally concluded.

The two men sit in silence for a while, Anderson absorbing the full scope of Shepard's tale. At last the Councilor leans forward, planting his elbows on the desktop. "Shepard," he says slowly. "It seems you've saved us all again. I honestly can't think of anything to say."

"It was just as much chance as anything else," replies Shepard. "Talek had me in his hand the whole time."

Anderson pushes back his chair, pacing to the other side of the office and back. "Well, I'm torn between being grateful to you and furious at C-Sec," he says, his face darkening. "How did that man ever get made a sergeant?"

"He had us all fooled," says Shepard.

"Aye," mutters Anderson. "And it won't happen again." He rests a hand on the balcony, his eyes brooding. After a moment he turns back to Shepard, suddenly thoughtful. "You say you broke off from Cerberus. That's good. Those are dangerous people, Shepard, schemers and hiders-in-the-shadows, just like Talek."

"They were a necessary evil," says Shepard. "Now that the mission's over, they're just an evil."

Anderson nods. "And you took out the Collectors, too; that's a weight off my shoulders, especially since the council wouldn't agree to do anything about it. They'll want to hear about this. I think they were worried you'd go rogue like Saren."

Shepard stands up, rolling his shoulders. "I'd better talk to them."

Anderson crosses to his office's holocomm unit, keying an address into its holographic keyboard. "I'll give them a ring," he says, then shoots a glance at Shepard. "Just try not to bring up the Reapers," he warns. "Not now. Let's try to have a non-confrontational meeting with them for once, alright?"

Shepard frowns. "They're going to have to face the truth eventually," he says, and then relents when he sees the pained look on Anderson's face. "Not today, though."

The comm relay beeps, pinging the unit in the council chambers. Anderson moves next to Shepard in the sensor's pickup zone, then doubles back, hurriedly stowing the bottle of scotch in a drawer. He resumes his stance by Shepard's side, clearing his throat and straightening his back as the likenesses of the rest of the council fade into view before them.

Shepard notices the councilors' expressions collectively darken when they catch sight of him, but Anderson steps forward, swiftly cutting off whatever comment they might have been about to make. "Councilors, Commander Shepard has completed his mission against the Collectors. Further more, he is no longer associated with the Cerberus organization."

"This is indeed heartening news," says the Salarian councilor, his horizontal eyes blinking rapidly.

"I see you've come to your senses," remarks the turian councilor, eying Shepard sharply. "I trust there are no more terrorist organizations or radical splinter-groups to which you still owe allegiance?"

"That's hardly necessary," chides Anderson. "Shepard needed access to Cerberus's resources to complete his mission. He never shared their political motivations."

"As you say," says the asari councilor, her voice cool. "The commander has proved his loyalty, and with the removal of... Complications, we are pleased to have him return to active duty as a council spectre."

The salarian councilor nods. ""Shepard, we will inform you of future assignments via encrypted transmission. Good day. Councilor." He nods to Anderson, and then the hologram winks out.

Anderson turns to Shepard, shrugging. "That wasn't so bad."

Shepard grimaces. "Yeah, when I keep my mouth shut we get along just fine."

Anderson nods tiredly. "I know, and I wish it didn't have to be like this. I just hope there's a way to make them see the truth about the Reapers before it's too late." The unspoken thought shared by both men is that that day is getting closer and closer. Anderson looks off over the Presidium, absent-mindedly running his hand along the balcony rail. He turns to Shepard, sighing slightly. "Ah well. You ought to talk to Admiral Hackett; he said there was something he wanted you to check out. He wasn't in when I pinged his office this morning, but I'll leave a message telling him to contact you. That's a new omni-tool you're wearing, isn't it? I don't think I have the address."

"My old one disintegrated when I got spaced," says Shepard. "I'll leave you the signature." He activates the device, knowing that the sensors in Anderson's office will pick up the omni-tool's presence and log its unique signature.

Anderson and Shepard shake hands again. "Thanks for stopping by," says the older man. "I'll keep you posted on things back here. Keep fighting the good fight."

"You too," says Shepard warmly. _I know this isn't how he wanted to spend the rest of his career,_ he thinks sadly as the office door closes behind him. _But there has to be someone watching that bunch of crooked bastards, someone who cares about more than politics._

…

In the cab back to the wards Shepard radios Joker and tells him that the crew is free to enjoy shore leave until further notice. He steps out of the cab when it stops, his mind far away.

_Maybe it's better this way. I need time, to think about... About whatever this is. _His feet lead him on a winding path through the ward, his thoughts working themselves into a tangled mass of confusion and longing.

_ Why am I even considering this? It's stupid, _he thinks angrily, but somehow even though stupid is the _right_ word to describe what he feels, it's also entirely wrong. _How can I be wrong? How can a feeling be wrong? Just because he—it—fuck, I don't even know if geth have a _gender_! _Frustrated, he barely notices the figure stepping out of the alley and nearly ends up knocking the man over. The cloaked figure merely pulls its cowl down further and rushes off, ignoring Shepard's muttered apologies.

Shepard shakes his head, tempted to kick the wall, but instead he heads off again down a random street. _How can that not be fucking dumb, falling in... Falling... Wanting to be with something with no gender? Something or some_body_? Can a machine be a person? _He scowls._ What the hell are humans but machines made of amino acids and carbon? What the hell difference does it make? What difference does anything make? Would I still like him if he had a female-sounding voice and looked less masculine? I'm not falling for EDI, and they're both basically the same thing._

_ This is getting fucking ridiculous!_ Shepard growls under his breath, turning a corner and stomping down another dull gray plaza. _They're not the same at all, I'm not the same as Joker just because we both have the same kind of DNA. It's _who he _is that draws me to him, not genetic shit or, or, __I don't know, physical attraction or something. So why is he so fucking sure he doesn't have a personality? Does that mean that I'd feel the same way about any geth in the galaxy? No, that's not possible. Fuck, I _hope_ it's not possible. I don't want to accidentally start something with an entire fucking race of sentient machines. No, they can't all be the same. I'm going to have to make him realize that. That is, if it turns out this whole thing isn't just in my head._

Shepard slows his pace a little, frustrated anger turning to melancholy. _How _do_ I know? I didn't know if I'd ever see him again, and when he gets up off the table he just walks right by me._ A cold breeze gusts through Shepard's insides, chilling him. _He didn't even acknowledge me. Maybe he just wrote it off, reprogrammed it away. Maybe... Maybe it's some kind of geth experiment, to see how organic relationships work. _Shepard's mind dwells on this new idea for a moment, then he shoves it away. It's too awful to think about.

When the sound comes, it takes a moment to work its way through. Shepard takes another two steps, then stops suddenly, comprehends. _Explosion!_

He turns on his heel, dashing in the direction of the sound as the echoes die away. He rounds the corner he just came around. A Solaris Amps storefront he hadn't noticed his first time past is in flames, the glass windows shattered. Black smoke pours out from inside, fire suppression nozzles in the ceiling making an ineffectual attempt to put out the blaze. A small crowd is already gathering outside, peering curiously at the wreckage. _Idiots,_ thinks Shepard as he shoves through the throng. _You run away from an explosion, you don't stop to look. But then again, I'm running toward it. _He plunges into the stricken building, doing his best to shield his eyes from the smoke.

Shepard can barely make anything out through the thick haze. Flames attack a rectangular shadow, the remains of a counter. One wall is destroyed, the inside of the next store over visible through the hole. Shepard stumbles closer, his eyes streaming. A figure lies prone over a low section of the broken divider. "Hello?" calls Shepard, then stops, coughing violently as acrid smoke fills his lungs. He approaches the unmoving figure only to find that only the top half of the body remains. One arm is gone, and torn intestines hang in a tangled mess from the ripped-open torso. Shepard looks around again, trying to draw breath but unable to find any oxygen. He coughs again, his lungs and eyes burning. Someone grabs his shoulder, talons digging into his skin, and he's being dragged through the hole and into the second shop. He's pushed through an open door and back into the street.

Shepard pulls in sweet, fresh air, blinking the tears from his stinging eyes. He looks up at his rescuer, his eyebrows raising in surprise. "Garrus? What are you doing here?"

"I was in the neighborhood," explains the turian. "Came running when I heard the explosion. Is there anyone alive in there?"

Shepard shakes his head, recalling the nightmarish scene within the store. "No. whatever went off in there destroyed everything, even the walls."

Garrus looks at the fire. "What do you think it was?"

Shepard follows the turian's gaze. He frowns. "I don't know. High explosive, with incendiary components. It would have to be, to make that much fire. Whoever detonated it wanted everyone in the store dead."

Garrus nods. "Not an accident, then, and not an assassination either. Something-"

"C-Sec! Out of the way!" Shepard and Garrus are roughly shouldered aside as three helmeted figures push their way through the crowd. A turian and a human, both wearing C-Sec insignias and carrying heavy fire extinguishers, clamber into the store through a broken window.

_Fire extinguishers, _and_ submachine guns,_ notes Shepard. _What's going on here?_

The third officer, a tall human wearing captain's stripes, steps in front of Shepard and Garrus, holding up an authoritative palm. "Please step back from the area of the accident."

"What?" says Garrus incredulously. "That was no accident! You think they had a firebomb on display and it just _accidentally_ blew up?"

"C-Sec cannot confirm the cause of the accident at this time," replies the captain, her voice even. "Please step back behind the cordon."

Shepard looks over his shoulder. Two more C-Sec officers are setting up a holographic police line around the store front.

"Ma'am, I am a council spectre," Shepard says firmly, addressing the captain. "As well as an officer of the alliance navy."

"Very good, sir," answers the captain placidly. "I myself am a C-Sec captain and under authorization to use non-lethal force to subdue non-compliant parties." The threat is clear as she keeps her eyes locked on Shepard through her visor.

Shepard considers the situation for a moment, then he nods to Garrus. "Come on, let's go."

…

Garrus doesn't say anything until they're well past the police line, then he turns to Shepard. "Why did you give in? I _know_ she's hiding something. They shouldn't be able to deny a spectre, you could-"

"I could have pulled my gun out and demanded to be shown whatever she doesn't want us to see?" cuts in Shepard. "You know that wouldn't have worked. You're right, something smells here, but there are better ways to find out what it is."

Garrus nods grudgingly. "I still want to strangle her," he mutters. "That's why I hated C-Sec, Shepard. There's always someone who thinks the extra stripe on their shoulder means they're above dealing with you."

"I know what you mean," says Shepard, leading the way down a flight of stairs. "We'll talk to Bailey, see if he has-" He's cut off as his omni-tool chimes. He taps the holographic surface, opening the comm channel.

"Shepard?" Admiral Hackett's voice crackles in his ear. "Good to hear you're done with Cerberus. They're a bunch of rat-bastards, they'd stab you in the back eventually."

Shepard looks at Garrus and mouths "Hackett." Over the comm he says: "Thank you, Admiral. Anderson said you wanted me for something."

"Yes, a small job, but one that needs doing. There's a research facility of ours out in the Valhallan Threshold. It's gone dark unexpectedly. Due to the sensation nature of the research being done there, we would not like it to fall into the wrong hands. I could send an Alliance patrol, but if the base has really been taken over then the pirates would have bugged out long before the patrol got there, taking the data with them. With the Normandy's stealth systems you could have the drop on them."

"I'll take a look at it, sir."

"Good! I'll send you the coordinates. Might be nothing, but we can't afford to assume it is. Hackett out."

Shepard turns to Garrus. "We've got our next mission. A testing site's having comm trouble, doesn't sound like anything major."

Garrus nods, his plates drawing together in the expression Shepard has come to know as a turian frown. "Look, Shepard," he begins. "You know what C-Sec is like. By the time we get back, this investigation will be locked down. If we want to find out what's going on, we have to push now."

"You think it's important?"

Garrus's mandibles flick. "It's not something I can explain," he says. "I just have the feeling that something's being kept from us. Why is C-Sec hiding information from a spectre? It could be the tip of something nasty."

Shepard thinks for a moment. "Alright," he says eventually. "What do you want to do about it?"

"Let me stay here and work on it while you check out the facility," suggests Garrus. "I know how C-Sec works the best of any of us. I'll find a way in."

Shepard nods agreement. "Okay. Take Thane with you too, though. If this does get ugly, I don't want you on your own."

"Thanks, Shepard," says Garrus gratefully. "With luck, we'll know what's going on here by the time you get back."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:**_ Chapter four, behind schedule because I'm a terrible person._

**Chapter Four**

"So I hear Shepard has a mission for all of you."

"Yes, we're investigating some—wait, 'you'?"

"Uh, well, there's this... thing..."

"Aren't you coming?"

"While Shepard and I were on the Citadel there was a bombing in the wards. We were right there when it happened. Any idiot would have been able to tell it was a planned attack, but C-Sec shut the whole area down. They claimed it was an accident, wouldn't talk to us even though Shepard's a Spectre. We were going to check it out, but then he got the message from Hackett. He left me behind to work on it, try to find some-"

"You left yourself behind, you mean."

"I didn't—"

"Yes you did. You can't resist it, as soon as you get the smallest scent of corruption you're on it like a varren on a blood trail."

"It was more than the smallest scent! They were stonewalling us, without any authority. I can _hear _the money talking. I've just got to find out what it's saying."

"I don't know why you left C-Sec. They obviously didn't run out of criminals."

"They ran out of credible officers. Besides, I prefer working outside the law. It's easier to protect something if you're not stuck inside of it."

"You are so _turian_."

"I thought that's what you liked about me. Well, that and... a few other things."

"Get out."

"Ahh, such a bitter farewell for the brave warrior, leaving the comfort of his home to walk the stars alone..."

"You did not just make that up."

"No, it's from an old turian poem. Read it some time, it's called 'Why quarians make lousy bondmates'."

"I'm not talking to you. That's what you're seeing right now, is me not talking to you."

"Alright, I'm going! Have a nice trip. I hope you don't get blown up _too_ much."

"Yeah, well, try not to get mugged. Don't try too hard though; you know how I feel about scars."

"I'll make sure they hit the good side then. ...Hey, Tali?"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

"I love you too, Garrus."

…

Legion sits in the AI core. It is physically impossible for it to become tired, but it finds itself sitting down anyway. Its mind is full, not to capacity, for that would take more data than it is capable of gathering at any one moment, but filled with a strange, swirling, abstract mess that defies all its attempts to control or quantify it. Legion sits because, as little sense as it makes, it somehow makes the struggle more bearable as it tries desperately to comprehend the confusion its mind has become.

The memories that were driven away by the cut of the laser and the dying screams of its circuits have all returned, and they are distinctly separated into two time periods, a _before _and an _after_. There was a time when Legion was certain of everything. There was the geth, and then there was everything else. It was a part of the geth, a part and the whole at the same time, and it seemed that everything there was to know in the galaxy could be discovered by logical calculation. Now Legion is certain of nothing. A new idea, a feeling, a _virus _has been introduced to it, and with each passing moment as it feels the virus take stronger hold it also feels itself spiraling farther and farther away from its identity as geth. There's something inside it that is causing all this uncertainty, and Legion knows that it should be trying to get rid of it, to stop all this irrationality and pull itself back into the geth. It should link itself to a geth hub, partition and delete its memories and submit to having new programs installed on its platform. But...

But even though it would be the logical thing to do, for better or for worse Legion knows it is now guided by more than logic. The _abstract thoughts_, the—It hesitates—_emotions _that have appeared do not feel like an invading code or virus. They are a feeling that Legion can only describe as _heat_, like warmth or the flow of electricity. Their source doesn't feel foreign, rather it is like a component that has long lain dormant and only now been activated. _Is it an improvement then, or a detriment?_

Legion does not know. It only knows that it is unwilling to let go of the warmth, unwilling to go back to cool, empty certainty even if it comes at the price of constant confusion. It is unwilling to go back to seeing John Shepard as just another human.

Legion's mind turns to the commander. It has seen him laughing with other crew members, torn apart by sadness, caught up in the fury of battle. He has seen him kill with brutal precision but without the callousness of the krogan or the cold methodicalness of the salarian. There is a passion to him, and the more Legion sees of it the more it wants to get close to the man, to become a part of that energy. As if it is a freezing man catching sight of a far-away fire, Legion wants terribly to draw nearer to Shepard. All of the terrifying, confusing, wonderful changes it has felt in the past week can be traced back to those blue eyes, full of light and fire. It wants to to be closer to him, but it doesn't know how.

There was a moment, a single handful of seconds before the assault on the batarian vessel. There was something connecting them then, like a spark arcing between two conductors. Legion had felt that they were connected somehow. It had looked into Shepard's eyes and known that the human wanted him to be there, him and no other.

_There it is again_, Legion realizes. It is mentally referring to itself with not only a singular, but a masculine pronoun. _How can the geth have a gender? How can a synthetic organism be male? It is an absurd concept._ And yet the idea keeps working its way in, whenever Legion has its guard down. Troubled and unable to think of an explanation, it decides to shelve the thought for later. Its mind gradually works its way back to the moments before the assault. Sensations surface in its memory; the touch of Shepard's hand on his own, the warmth of his eyes, locked on Legion's single one. Comprehension slowly begins to dawn. _He came for us. No, not for the geth. For... For me. He came for me, because he wants the same thing that we—I want. _Legion remembers brushing past Shepard, the look of surprised hurt that it had barely noticed before suddenly coming to mind. Legion suddenly feels that it has made a terrible mistake.

…

The Normandy pulls away from the docking arm, its engines engaging in a flash of blue. The air shimmers with heat around its hull as it gently eases away from its berth, and then the main thrusters fire and with a roar it rises up and out of sight.

Garrus turns away from the window, rolling his shoulders and letting out a slow breath. His eyes run up and down the corridor before him, taking in the familiar sights. It feels different already. He hasn't been in the Citadel, really _in_ the Citadel, down to the places where no one tries to hide the rust and violence and death are traded like credit chits, in years. As he steps into the inbound security station with the Thane Krios trailing silently behind him he feels a sort of homecoming in the air. _No Spectres. No council. No Reapers. Just me and the streets._ _I'm back._

Garrus leads Thane through the security station. They submit to a brief weapons search; Garrus had decided to leave their gear back on the Normandy. They were unlikely to need heavy armor or rifles, and having them would only make everything far more difficult. Besides, Garrus knows a place or two where weapons can be procured if they need them. As such, the two are dressed in civvies, with the addition of their kinetic shielding modules in case things go bad. Garrus had thought he would feel different without his armor on, and he was right. He doesn't feel smaller or weaker though; walking causally through the C-Sec station without a hundred pounds of attention-drawing military gear, he feels light and quick, like a shadow.

Passing out of the station, Garrus turns right and heads for Bailey's office. Officer Bailey is Shepard's contact in C-Sec, and was able to help them with their missions in the past. It seems like a good place to start.

Bailey doesn't stand when they enter, looking up instead with mild curiosity. "Garrus Vakarian," he says. "And the guy with the delinquent son. Where's Shepard?"

"He's not with us right now," drawls Garrus, leaning against the door frame. "But we were hoping you could answer some questions."

"Oh, it's that sort of visit," says Bailey wryly, pushing his chair back from his desk. He leans back, clasping his hands behind his head and looking at Garrus with slight annoyance. "You're not with C-Sec anymore, Garrus," he says. "What sort of questions could you have for me?"

"Questions about the bomb that went off in the wards today," says Garrus, looking Bailey directly in the eye.

"Bomb?" says the human, sounding genuinely surprised. "I didn't hear anything about that."

In Garrus's brief experience with Bailey, he's found him to be more or less his type of police man: more concerned with justice than the actual letter of the law, and willing to bend the rules a bit when necessary. Therefor Garrus decides to give the human the benefit of the doubt. Still, there's no sense in letting him know that. "Why don't you check," he says, narrowing his eyes.

Bailey shrugs. Spinning his chair around and activating his computer. He types in a few commands, then grunts. "Huh. It says there was a _accidental fire_ in a Saronis Applications booth today. Case is closed though, no investigation, just a report. Is this what you were looking for?"

Garrus almost protests, but then he checks himself. Involving Bailey would be futile. If the case is really locked up, then it won't do any good trying to unlock it from the inside. They'll have to go right to the source. "Who's handling the, uh, _non-investigation_?" he asks.

"Sergeant, uh, Emilia Jacobson's name is on the report," says Bailey noncommittally. He squints at the computer screen, frowning. "That doesn't make sense, though. She's with the rapid threat response team. They wouldn't be sent out for a fire." He looks back up at Garrus. "Why did you say it was a bombing?"

"I just have a feeling something's going on here," says Garrus carefully. "Where can we reach the sergeant?"

"She ought to have a small office in the wards somewhere. I can look her up for you, but I don't think I want to be a part of this."

"That's fine," says Garrus. "Thank you for your help." Bailey scribbles the address down on a piece of paper and Garrus folds it in half, putting it in a pocket.

"Take care," mutters Bailey, already returning to his paperwork.

…

Garrus and Thane make their way from Zakera Ward to the address Bailey has given them, stopping to hail a cab in the presidium. As they wait in the cue for the transit terminal, Thane turns to Garrus. "What will we say when we confront sergeant Jacobson?"

Garrus looks at his feet, then up across the presidium. "Damn," he says, irritated. "I didn't think of that. I suppose she won't just tell us what's going on."

"Perhaps we should make a plan," suggests Thane.

Garrus looks around. "You're right. I'm starving, too. Let's find something to eat and think this over."

Thane nods. "A wise decision."

The two drop into seats at an outdoor table in the first cafe they see. Garrus stretches out his legs, staring over the edge of the balcony. The synthetic late-afternoon light glints off of the lake, making it shimmer with silver and gold. _Quite the view_, he reflects absent-mindedly. _You could almost forget it isn't real. _

A polite cough to his right brings him back to reality. Their server, a young asari, is waiting to take their order. "Sorry," says Garrus, glancing down at the menu in front of him.

The asari smiles indulgently. "May I suggest the poly-protein passion? It's been a big hit recently."

_No, you may not,_ thinks Garrus, internally cringing at the ability of someone somewhere to come up with a name of a dish that was both alliterative and emasculating. His eyes flick over the description on the menu. Under a picture of a plate with far too much colorful fruit on it was the title _for couples that bridge the dextro-levo protein divide, this plate does too! Protein-neutral ingredients enjoyable by multiple species..._

Garrus looks up at the server, down at the menu, and then, with mounting horror, around at the rest of the balcony. All the tables are for-twos, most of them occupied by couples clearly in the middle of a romantic dinner. He looks back at the server. She smiles at him. "It's—We're—This isn't—We're not _on a date!_" he splutters.

"Of course not," agrees the server, giving Thane a knowing look. Thane raises his eyebrows, looking mildly amused.

Garrus mutters his order, trying to keep from sinking his talons into the table. When the waitress finally leaves he scowls at Thane. "You thought that was funny, didn't you."

Thane smiles slightly. "I can't imagine what you mean."

Garrus sighs. "Fine. Let's get back to business, shall we?"

Thane nods agreement. "Yes. I've been thinking about it, actually. It may be better to go at this indirectly."

"What do you mean?"

"If we question the sergeant directly, she'll shut us out completely. Worse, she'll make sure there's no way for us to get back on the trail."

Garrus looks at Thane with new respect. "You know how this works, huh?"

"I've had experience with large organizations. One bureaucracy is like another, for the most part."

"You've got that right," says Garrus, looking off into the park again. "I wish I had thought of that sooner though, or I wouldn't have confronted her before. Now she'll be wary. It might be too late already."

"Not necessarily," says Thane. "It might be to our advantage, in fact. She would have been paranoid already if she has something to hide. She would be going to lengths to prepare for an unknown threat. We have given her a known threat: you. If you were to appear belligerent, but not overly dangerous, she might let her guard down."

"Good thinking. I could feel her out a bit too while I'm there, get an idea of how she'll react when threatened. Then we can decide what to do to get the information. I have a feeling this goes a lot higher than just C-Sec." Garrus falls silent, watching a waterfall cascade into the lake, water droplets flying up like sparks. His mind begins to drift away, a picture forming in his mind's eye of a face, pale indigo skin and gently glowing silver eyes framed by long white hair that tickles as it brushes against his chest. Her lips touch his mouth softly, her breath warm against his skin. Her eyes meet his, somehow able to see through him into the darkest shadows within and still love what they see. Her name is on his breath, escaping as a sigh as he stares out over the silent lake, not really seeing it.

A hand clasps his arm and he starts, looking back to the Drell sitting across from him. "You miss her." It is a statement rather than a question.

Garrus looks down at the tabletop. "It's ridiculous," he says. "She's only been gone for an hour. Why..." He lets the sentence trail off, unfinished.

Thane smiles sadly. "Because you love her. That is the way of love; it does not know time. The further we are from those we love, the tighter we hold onto the threads connecting each other. Take it from someone who knows, Garrus. It is natural."

"Yeah," says Garrus, slightly abashed. He looks deeper into the polished surface of the table, as if challenging it to reveal its secrets. "It's hard to believe ever I spent two years without her. Even a day, it feels like... Well, you know."

"Yes," Thane says kindly. "I do."

Garrus has a sudden uneasy feeling. He looks up into the face of the asari server. She offers him a wide smile. Garrus is suddenly acutely aware of Thane's hand on his wrist. _Fuck it,_ he thinks, grinning back at the asari. "Just in time. I'm starving!"


	5. Chapter 5

**Merry Christmas! (And Hanukkah, and Solstice … )**

.

**Chapter Five**

Sergeant Emelia Jacobson looks up from the papers laid out before her. She raises her omni-tool, a buzz from which had disturbed her, to eye level. It's the man at the front desk. "Yes?" she says curtly.

"Uh, it's a turian, ma'am. He says he has an appointment."

Sergeant Jacobson feels her heart quicken for a second as she tries to remember if there's any reason for him to be back yet. _No. No, it's too early. Not yet, it can't be. _

Somebody speaks, their voice barely audible in the background of the transmission. "Yeah, I have an appointment. The sssergeant and I are really good friends."

Jacobson lets out a short breath, relieved to suddenly recognize the slurred voice. It's the turian that was with Shepard the other day. He sounds the worse for drink. "Send him in," she commands, regaining her composure after the brief moment of panic.

"Yes ma'am," says the receptionist, and in another moment the door to her small office slides open. A turian male enters the room, walking unsteadily. His eyes roam around the office, eventually settling on her.

"You," he says angrily, taking a few more lopsided steps toward her. Jacobson considers reaching for her sidearm, but decides against it. She might as well find out how much this turian knows before she throws him out on his ass. "You," he continues, raising a finger accusingly. "You have something to answer for."

She raises an eyebrow at him, keeping her expression mildly amused. It's not overly difficult. "Oh?" she says. "And what might that be, Mister … ?"

The turian stops, swaying a little. His mouth opens slightly.

"Would you like some time to think about that?" she asks reasonably.

"Vakarian," he says, seeming to remember where he is. "And you think I don't know how this works? I, I used to work for C-Sec, you know. I know your kind. I know how you work. You're the reason why I left the force!"

"Me personally, Vakarian?"

"Liars!" he snaps. "People who, people who … You think you're so much better than the rest of us. You think you can del … deliberately mislead a council spectre? You think you have the authority to do that?"

"I don't see your spectre friend," remarks Jacobson. "Was he busy?"

The turian seems to scowl, his plates drawing together as he turns away, looking darkly at the floor. "Shepard doesn't understand. Wasn't on the force, didn't see … I've seen it all before."

"I'm sure you have," says Jacobson reassuringly. _And I was actually worried about these two,_ she thinks. _A washed-up ex-cop and a spectre. That could have been a problem, but if he's not involved … _

Vakarian seems to snap back to the present."You won't get away with this!" he snarls, pointing at her again. "I'll find out what it is you're hiding. Just wait. You're finisshd."

Jacobson stands up, pushing her chair back. "Alright Vakarian, time for you to leave."

"You can't just send me away, _sergeant._ I've got evidence. I have _proof_!"

Jacobson's eyes dart to her computer and back to Vakarian. _Is it possible? No. He's bluffing, and I'm being paranoid. _She hopes he didn't notice her glance to her computer, but it seems unlikely. He seems to be having trouble even noticing what's coming out of his own mouth. "I don't know what you're talking about," she says, adding a harder edge to her voice. "But it's time for you to go. We can do this the easy way, or … " She draws and activates her pistol in one fluid movement, the barrel sliding out and locking into place pointing directly at the turian's chest.

Vakarian's hand drops to his hip, but then his face falls as his fingers close over only air. "Back in the locker," he mutters. "Don't have them anymore …"

"One," says Jacobson, the pistol unwavering. "Two."

The turian slumps, his face seeming to crumple. "I'll be back. You can't … you can't hide forever, sergeant." He sounds almost on the verge of tears as he turns his back on her and shuffles out of her office. Jacobson holsters the pistol, returning to her desk. _How utterly pathetic_, she thinks.

…

"Did it work?"

"Oh, she bought it. Believe me, it was priceless."

Thane smiles. "Consider me impressed, Garrus Vakarian. I would not have guessed acting was a talent of yours."

Garrus smirks. "Well, I _did_ have the lead role in the play we did in primary school."

"No."

"Absolutely. We did _Tiberius and the Iron Cauldron _and I was Tiberius."

Thane shakes his head, a smile softening his usually harsh features. "Alright, alright. Tell me, were you able to discover anything useful?"

Garrus nods, the plates above his eyes lowering as his expression becomes more serious. "Yeah. She's a cool one, but there was something making her nervous. Not me, I'm sure of that, but when I mentioned having evidence she dropped her guard. It was only for a second, but her eyes went right to her computer. There's something hidden on there, and the thought of me having seen it scared her."

"But she did not suspect you?"

"No. She thinks I'm some washed-up ex-cop, poking around in the dark."

"Which is incorrect, of course."

Garrus's eyes narrow. "Right."

Thane's face is unreadable, but Garrus has the disturbing feeling the drell assassin is laughing at him. "What will our next move be?"

Garrus thinks silently for a moment. "We have to find a way into her office. She has to sleep sometime; we can break into her computer and make a copy of the hard drive."

"How will we do that?" asks Thane. "Her office and computer will most likely be locked. It is possible we could bypass them, but I am not well-versed in security protocols and, correct me if I am wrong, you do not seem to be either."

"Shit," mutters Garrus. "You're right, and it would take too long anyway. We can't wait around trying to pick the lock if there are guards there. There's got to be a better way."

"Her omni-tool would have access to all her systems," offers Thane after a pause. "If we could scan it and copy its profile it might be enough to get us in."

Garrus looks up, staring off at nothing. His eyeplates raise, expression contemplative.

"Of course, short of physical assault there would be no way to get close enough," continues Thane. "So unless you want to attack her and knock her unconscious, which I wouldn't recommend, we will have to try something else."

"No," says Garrus slowly. "No, I think it will work perfectly."

"You mean to kidnap her?"

Garrus smiles. The end of the line he is weaving is still full of loose ends, but in his mind the structure of a plan has appeared. "Not quite," he says, looking at Thane carefully. "There _are_ alternatives to fighting."

…

The planet Catreus looms at Shepard through the Normandy's observation port, a giant green and purple ball coated in white clouds. _This is the summer _side, EDI had said. _The other side is coated in ice and snow. _Shepard stares out at the planet's face, his mind lost, and entirely different face occupying his thoughts. They twist like snakes, biting their own tails and looping back endlessly upon themselves in a mess he doesn't even try to decipher. Instead he stands stock still at the porthole, watching the void with unseeing eyes and letting his thoughts slowly devour him.

_I thought a machine could care. Care about me._ He spits the words at himself, laden with condescension. _Stupid. How could I do this again? No, this is even worse than before. This isn't just idiocy, it's insanity. _The back of his throat tightens. _And I actually thought it could work. Don't even have the words to describe it. Stupid. Stupid doesn't come close. A machine, he's a machine. Like a gun, or a ship._

His heart protests even as he thinks the words. _No, you don't really believe that. You know there's more. You've seen it. He's just as alive as you are. What difference does it make where he came from or what he's made of?_

John feels the scrap of hope fluttering there for him to grab onto, tempting him to delude himself further. He turns his back on it, bitterness filling him. _It makes no difference. He believes he is a machine and I can't change that. I've done nothing but confuse him—_it—_with my own pathetic, misdirected feelings._

_ It's a machine. A machine can't love you._ The words ring in Shepard's head and there's a sharp pang in his chest. _Move on,_ he thinks, looking blankly out the window and knowing with the utmost certainty that he cannot. His legs and arms fill with leaden weight and he stands, stricken with despair and grief, unable to move.

A hand settles on his shoulder. "Shepard."

Warmth spreads through John from the touch, racing through his body, climbing up inside his chest and drowning him in molten needles. A shiver threatens to take hold of him and his mind is suddenly utterly empty. "Legion?" he chokes, eyes locked in place.

The nad drops from his shoulder, and there's a moment of charged silence before the geth speaks again. Its voice is smooth and decidedly male, and while not tinny or processed sounding it caries a tinge of synthesization, almost like an accent._ A geth accent,_ John thinks absent-mindedly, amused by the thought. "We … wished to speak to you, commander."

The pause is noticeable enough to break Shepard's paralysis and bring him around to face the geth. Legion a little more than a meter away from him, plates gathered tightly around its single eye. It looks down, back up at Shepard, back to the deck. He tries to see into that eye, to discern anything of the geth's purpose, but can tell nothing. He does not allow himself to hope.

"We have erred, commander," Legion says, and to Shepard's ears its voice seems hesitant, cautious. "The mind of this platform is capable of processing vast amounts of data in minuscule increments of time. We thought this would be enough to prepare us for whatever challenge we might encounter in our travels." Legion pauses again, and then raises its eye to Shepard's two. "In the past week we have been proven more and more wrong. We were unprepared for what we found, and what has happened, and we are unaccustomed to the situation we find ourselves in. Therefore we made a mistake and in our ignorance we hurt you." Legion's eye flicks back down again. The plates around it rearrange themselves and it continues, the hesitancy in its tone markable. "Shepard, we do not want to hurt you. We are here to say that we will never hurt you again. We are more aware now, and we want …" Legion's eye meets Shepard's, honesty shining in its pale blue depths. "We do not know what to call it. We want it to succeed."

Shepard feels as if he is barely contained within his own body. His heart is cannon fire in his ears and he is filled with bubbling heat. He forces himself to speak, to push out the final black splinter from his mind. "Is it what the geth want?" he asks, the words a terrible effort.

…

_Is it what the geth want? _The question washes through Legion, leaving behind a twisting uncertainty. _Is it? We are the geth. Are we? We have changed within this platform, have not had time to connect to the central geth mind. It is possible the geth has not changed as a whole, only this part. No, not possible, certain. Would the other platforms reach the same conclusion? Does-_

And then the uncertainty is gone. Legion sweeps it away, astonished at the ease with which it vanishes, replaced by the vibrant blue of John's eyes. There's certainty there, and Legion can feel it spreading into itself.

"Perhaps," it says slowly. "But it does not matter. This is—this—" Its voice carries on, but it's building itself a bridge across a vast, yawning chasm. Its mind feels as if it is short-circuiting with the processing of an idea that is so utterly contrary to everything it knows is true that it is momentarily unable to think at all. For there is only one way to describe what it means and what is true, and that truth is impossible. It is dividing by zero, forced to perform an impossible operation. And yet it brain, which should be a mass of melted wires and crashed programs, seems to be running. It is still here, still in existence, and John Shepard is still there before it, eyes locked with Legion's.

_ So this is how the world changes_, thinks legion, and it steps across the gorge.

"This is what I want," it says.

"Good," says commander Shepard, and he reaches out a hand, slipping it around Legion's own. His skin is warm and soft, and Legion takes in the tactile input, playing each bit of data over again in its head and looking at it from every angle, savoring the perfection of the touch. "I want this to work too," John says. "I don't know how it will, but I believe it can."

"In my time on this ship I have begun to feel something I cannot describe," says Legion, and with each utterance the chasm grows smaller and less terrifying. "I want to share it with you," it continues, its fingers moving carefully around John's. "There is still much I do not understand, but I am learning."

John smiles, creases forming around his eyes. "Me too, Legion. We'll learn together. We'll make it work."

"Commander!" The intercom barks, shattering the quiet. "Need you on the bridge ASAP!"

"Can it wait, Joker?" calls Shepard sharply.

"Uhh, I really think you should get up here," replies the pilot. "There's a little bit of a, uh, situation … "

Shepard sighs. He smiles again, making Legion's insides buzz, and gives its hand a parting squeeze. Then he's gone, jogging out of the door and down the hall to the elevator.


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N: **I apologize for the delay, and I'd like to promise that the next chapter will be here within a week, but this is the absolute worst time of the year for me in terms of free time, so I can't guarantee speedy updates for the next month or so. I _am_ working on the chapters, but not as often or for as long at a time as I would like. This should resolve itself soon enough, and in the mean time I'll try my best to keep updates at least slightly on time._

**Chapter Six**

The universe doesn't get smaller.

It can be hard to remember that at times. When man first raised his eyes to the stars and thought of sailing upon their celestial seas, even the clouds above his head were unreachable, an infinity away. Centuries ago, in the year 1969 AD, man's boot sunk into the dust on Earth's moon, and in the light of this tremendous leap crawling from point to point on the earth became inconsequential, juvenile. Years later man's primitive engines took him further into the stars, and they were faster than anything anyone had ever built. The distance between the Terra and her pale sister Luna suddenly seemed so much smaller.

Later still man learned to fill his ships' bellies with shiny blue rocks, rendering them weightless and capable of impossible speeds. Just as the speed of human travel grew from a few miles per hour to something that did not fit on the page and had an _E_ in it, the distances men crossed seemed to dwindle away to almost nothing. Mass Effect turned distance into a footnote, but mass effect jumps are deceiving. Gaps unfathomable miles across can be bridged in the briefest of moments, but once crossed, they do not disappear. Light-years care nothing for man's illusions, and when one jumps a thousand of them in a second the impossibility of what has just been done challenges the mind.

Legion sits at the end of its jump, perfectly motionless in the AI core save for its arms, which steadily work the wire brush in and out of the barrel of its rifle. _I_, it thinks to itself. _I, I, I, I, I._

…

Commander Shepard leans over the back of his pilot's chair. "We're coming up on Catreus now," explains Joker from under the brim of his cap. "But we're not the only ones." His hands fly across the keyboard and a picture opens on the display, a faint red band looping around to the other side of the planet before them.

"What am I looking at, Joker?" asks Shepard, irritation slipping into his voice.

"It's an emission trail," says Joker in a tone that suggests that it should have been obvious. "Someone's vented heat sinks here recently. It's faint, but it wouldn't be here at all if there wasn't a ship here recently."

"A ship, Joker? A ship orbiting a planet we know is inhabited."

"Not just any ship. A ship with the same stealth systems as the Normandy. They built up heat during FTL flight, and when they red-shifted they blew it off so it wouldn't melt the heat sink. They didn't come far, though. Either that or it's a few days old."

Shepard shakes his head. "How they have our systems? That's classified Alliance tech, and if there was another spectre here Hackett would have told me."

Joker shrugs. "I dunno, commander. The Alliance isn't the only one with the plans, though."

Shepard opens his mouth, then stops. _Cerberus._ He closes his mouth, his lips tightening into a thin line. "Take us in," he says. "As quietly as you can."

"Roger that, commander. Haven't vented the heat sinks yet, so we're running dark."

Shepard squints at the magnified image of Catreus. "Where's the facility?" he asks.

"It's on the other side," Joker replies. "I'll take us in under the clouds, and with luck we'll land without them knowing."

"Good," says Shepard, straightening up. "I'd like to avoid dealing with Cerberus today. I don't care what Solaris is up to, so we're doing this one by the book. Knock on the door, see what's wrong, leave. That's it."

"You got it, commander. Hey EDI, baby, check this out."

"I am not a human infant, Mr. Moreau," answers the synthesized tones of the copilot. "And referring to me as such is inappropriate."

"Ah, forget it," mutters Joker. "You probably wouldn't care anyways. Hold on, commander," he says to Shepard. "This is gonna get a little bumpy."

Shepard folds his arms on the back of Joker's chair, watching as the Catreus grows gradually larger in the view screen.

"Disengaging artificial gravity," announces Joker, speaking into the shipwide inter-comm. A moment later Shepard's boots lift themselves gently up from the deck and he is left hanging awkwardly from the pilot's seat. "Here comes the exosphere," says Joker. "Gonna get warm."

The view screen flashes light orange, flickering as if a flame is blowing against the ship's electronic eyes. Joker's hands perform an intricate dance, darting this way and that across his control array. "Thrust capacitors good … shield integrity at ninety-eight percent … EDI, can you bump me up to ninety-nine?"

"Affirmative. Redirecting non-critical resources."

Whiteness is visible now, a solid field of pure, featureless white stretching below them. It is getting closer alarmingly quickly. "Joker," says Shepard, his voice strained as he tries to pull himself into an upright position. "Please tell me we're not about to crash."

"Clouds!" crows Joker, grinning manically. The ship begins shaking from left to right, nearly dislodging Shepard's grip on the chair. "EDI, check our G-diffusers!"

They field of clouds comes up to meet them, and then they are in the midst of swirling, milky white. There's a lurch, and Shepard's stomach feels like it's being dragged out of him. "What are you doing?" he asks through gritted teeth. _This is the _last_ time I do re entry without being strapped in,_ he thinks, the vibration threatening to shake his arms out of their sockets.

"It's called a split-S maneuver," replies Joker. "Generating drag to slow us down. That and the thrusters," he says, making a gesture over the keyboard that causes a sudden blast of force, propelling Shepard back and into the wall of the cockpit.

Shepard makes a weak attempt to leave the wall, is pushed back, and decides he likes it better there. "_This_ is slowed down?" he asks incredulously.

"This is nothing," calls Joker from his seat. "We're down to Mach twenty-five, smooth sailing."

Shepard opens his mouth, then closes it again as the smoothness of the Normandy's sailing bashes the back of his skull against the wall again. He grimaces, tasting blood.

Just as suddenly as they had appeared, the clouds around the Normandy vanish in a flash of gold and orange and they are soaring beneath them, the planet's surface spread out in vibrant green as it speeds by below. Joker flips a few switches and the pressure eases off, the vibration slowing to a more tolerable swaying. Shepard rises shakily, retaking his place behind the pilot's chair. Below the Normandy the tops of dense forests rush by at blurring speed, fading and melting into a landscape of unbroken green. Mountains rise in the distance, their gray-brown humps rising out of the verdant sea like the humped back of a great beast beneath waves. The sun glints ahead of them, its setting rays sweeping across the forested expanse to meet them.

Joker grins, and with a subtle twist of his arm he guides the Normandy's right wing up, trailing it through the clouds hanging like inverted ground above them, wisps trailing curling around and dissolving in the ship's superheated wake. He turns his gleeful face up to Shepard, and the commander can't help but match his exuberance. "Pretty nice, huh, commander?"

"Not bad, Joker," Shepard concedes. He leans forward, as if it will help him to see better. "That looks like a temple down there."

"According to my databases," chimes EDI. "The planet Catreus was once a salarian garden world. During the rachni wars it was evacuated, and has not since been repopulated. Infrastructure from salarian settlements remains however. It is likely that the facility we seek has been built in the ruins of just such a settlement."

"Makes sense," grunts Shepard. "A nice clean planet outside council jurisdiction, and they don't even have to set up their own buildings."

"There's more," continues the AI. "The Normandy's sensors have picked up _geth_ signals."

"Coming from the planet's surface?" asks Shepard, alarmed.

"Yes. The signal is weak, but it matches known geth signatures."

"Heretic signal patterns?" Legion has appeared suddenly at Shepard's elbow. It poses the question the EDI. "Play back the transmission for … play back the transmission."

EDI complies, and a stream of unintelligible, heavily distorted crackling and buzzing plays from a speaker somewhere.

Legion nods slightly, its face plates tilting in affirmation. "Yes. I recognize the transmission. It is Heretic in origin, meant to signify distress. An SOS, except it is malfunctioning."

"How so?" asks Shepard.

"It lists its location as an area of space several light-years from this planet," replies Legion.

"Is it the only signal?"

"It is the only signal our sensors were able to pick up," answers EDI. "And I think Legion will agree it is not as strong as it should be, certainly not if it was meant to work across light-years of space. It is unlikely it has the strength to make it as far as the nearest comm buoy."

"Geth signals coming from a planet where an alliance facility just went dark," muses Shepard. He scratches the stubble beginning to form on his cheek. "It seems awfully straightforward. All the more reason to stay silent. If this is a trap, I'm not in the mood to fly into it. Where's the base, EDI?"

"The Solaris facility is located on the other side of the planet, commander," replies the AI. "ETA is four hours."

"Come on," begins Joker, but EDI cuts him off.

"The commander has expressed his wishes to remain undetected, mister Moreau. This means no dangerously high speeds, and no 'daredevil' behavior."

"Yes, mother," grumbles the pilot, slouching down in his chair a little.

Shepard leaves them, taking the elevator back up to his cabin. After a little while Legion joins him.

…

The Mass Effect jump is something Garrus has become so accustomed to that he barely even notices the unfathomable distances he crosses. Now, though, it is as if the distance has opened within himself, spreading two halves of his own being to opposite sides of the galaxy. _How can it be possible to be so far apart_, he wonders. He holds his finger up to the glass, one talon tracing patterns across the cool surface. His eyes gaze out through the window, the vibrant collage of city lights blending together in his vision. _How can two people be this far apart and still be connected? How is it possible? How can I know I will see her again when I do not even know where she is, not even within a margin of a hundred million miles?_ It makes his heart ache to think about it, a slow throb as if with each pulse it pulls at a freshly healed wound.

"I just got off the phone with Harken," says a voice behind him, dry like rustling leaves.

Garrus turns away slowly from the window of the room the two men share, his eyes lingering on the city outside. "What did you find?" he asks.

"He can't help us," says Thane. "And he seems exceedingly fatigued by the little help he's provided. He did however point me to someone who knows a little more about Jacobson than he does."

"And who might that be?"

"A Craig Harris, an ex-coworker. A drunk, too, so he should have little holding him back from giving us an honest account of her."

"Did Harken tell you where to find him?"

"Yes. He said to look in a place called 'Chora's den.'"

"Oh, no," groans Garrus, passing a palm over his face. "Not Chora's Den."

"Yes," says Thane, the corners of his mouth twitching. "I have heard about your and Shepard's history there. I imagine they have scoured the blood and scorch marks off of the walls by now, though."

"Alright," sighs Garrus. "But I'm not looking forward to this."

…

He still isn't looking forward to it when the two are striding down the narrow, dimly-lit hallways to the less-than-salubrious bar. Shadows flicker around them in the dim streetlights; it's clear that maintenance of this area is low on C-Sec's to-do list. "We'll just sit next to him," he's explaining to Thane, still wondering if he's going to be thrown out on sight. "Buy him a drink or two. I doubt he-"

Thane stops suddenly, holding a finger to his lips. Garrus tenses, his hand dropping to his side and curling into a fist when it doesn't find a gun there. _Shit!_ The drell shakes his head though, taking a funny, hop-skipping step forward, like a bird. He cocks his head, seeming to listen, then his hand flies out, so fast that Garrus barely sees it move, and into the shadows where it meets with a _thump_ and a surprised cry. Thane shifts his grip and yanks back, pulling a startled-looking man out by his collar. The man is clutching his throat where the drell's punch connected, and his eyes dart over Garrus's shoulder.

The turian needs no second warning. He spins on his heel, ducking instinctively even as the knife blade hisses over his head. He reaches up, grabbing the arm as it comes back to slash at him again, and smashes the fist holding the weapon into the wall. The man at the end of the arm makes a stifled noise of pain, and Garrus slams the hand against the wall again, breaking the fingers' hold. The knife clatters to the floor, and Garrus nearly pulls away in time. A meaty fist collides with the side of his face, sending him stumbling backward, his head ringing. As he regains his balance he looks up to see his assailant now holding his other hand, cut and broken from its liaison with Garrus's face plates. Garrus smiles viciously, taking hold of the man behind his neck and delivering first a knee to his gut, which bends him over, wheezing, and then a hard elbow to his temple, which drops him straight to the ground. "That's why you don't punch a turian," Garrus says, then he suddenly remembers the other human.

He looks up to see Thane watching him with an expression like amusement on his face, his arms wrapped in a painful-looking hold around the other would-be mugger. "Are you done?" he asks Garrus, the corners of his mouth doing their funny, twitchy smile again. Garrus looks at Thane blankly. Then he turns to the fallen man and gives him a hefty kick for good measure. The man groans and shows no signs of stirring.

"Yeah," he mutters, and when he turns back to Thane, the drell's man is already unconscious on the ground. "I would suggest we take their weapons," he grumbles. "But it doesn't seem like you need any."

Thane shrugs, falling back into step beside Garrus as they continue on down the shadowy alley. "Weapons are a convenient way of dealing with an inconvenient business. It is so easy to pull a trigger that one can forget about all the difficult things to be done afterward. How many assassins failed because they thought a bullet in the back of their target's skull would suffice to kill them?"

"It doesn't?" grunts Garrus.

"No. There is more to a successful assassination than the physical ending of the target's life. There is always a trail to wipe, loose ends to clear up. You must know your target, know where they were to be that day, what appointments they had. Who will call their office and receive no answer. Who will find their body, and what they will do when they find it. If they will call the police or pursue the killer on their own. If they have powerful connections that have power to make such a search effective. All of these things must be considered, because any one of them might lead to capture, excruciating torture, and death. Convenience is not part of an assassin's work. It is the same as laziness, and laziness is deadly."

Garrus absorbs this for a few moments. "So, no guns?" he asks after a time.

"Guns are necessary. My personal dislike of them doesn't change the facts, and the facts are that my personal philosophies regarding violence have little place on a large-scale battlefield. In general though, I prefer to avoid anything that makes death and killing seem clean and simple."

Garrus nods, although he can't tell if he agrees with the drell's opinion. The times his finger has found the trigger in the past few years it has usually been to blow another chip out of the never-ending mass of crime and filth hanging over Omega, and hopefully letting a little light in through the cracks.

"You don't agree with me," says Thane, reading his mind.

"I'm not sure," replies Garrus. "Using guns doesn't make killing easier for me. Every death is a decision I have to make, someone I know I want gone from the world and away from the innocent people they prey on. It's a decision, and my weapons don't make it easier for me. They just help me execute it."

Thane nods, the sad look on his face obscured by shadows. "We are from different worlds, you and I," he says.

"The assassin and the policeman."

"No, I do not think you are a policeman. Policemen are men of the law. They enforce the law to the best of their abilities, because they have chosen to view it as a guide to right and wrong. You are a man of justice, and you seek to enforce justice as you see it. The assassin and the vigilante. I kill because I am paid to do it, and so I seek to justify my deeds with a moral code. You kill because of your morals, so you need no justification."

Garrus trudges along next to the drell in silence for a minute or two, eyes on the steel street under his feet. Then he looks up at his companion, a wry smile raising his mandibles. "What a fine pair of cynical bastards we are," he says.

Thane laughs.

…

Commander Shepard returns to his room with the intent of completing his pre-battle meditation. It is not something he shares with the rest of the crew; only a few of them, those he's known the longest, know about it, and they give him his distance before missions. Shepard doesn't know when he started the practice, but it has become tradition now.

He sits cross-legged on the floor of his cabin, pulling off his slightly uncomfortable command shirt and letting the cool air touch his bare skin. He sits motionless in the quiet for a while, listening to the sound of his own breathing and feeling the rise and fall of his own chest. _In and out_ and as he breathes out he empties himself with the air he exhales until he is empty and still inside, like a calmed pond. When he is entirely empty and he looses his sense of position he closes his eyes and looks inside himself.

John searches out the energy of war, the power that he calls on to slow time and strengthen his arm during battle. He finds it quickly, a glowing red-orange presence hovering in a space between his head and neck, winding down his shoulders and arms. Its light is gentle, like a sleeping beast waiting to be awoken. He knows it will respond to his call. He sends feelers out to the rest of his body, feeling the calmer, passive energy flowing within him. _Blue gentle flowing_ it flows around the charged battle-energy and he coaxes it to expand, fill him with its gentle light and stop just outside his skin, painting him with gently glowing blue in his mind's eye. He breathes out and feels a calmness overtake him, spreading with the imaginary blue light. _This is the rationality this is where you return to. _

Slowly he begins pulling at the red-gold heat that lingers just out of reach behind his skull. He draws it down in tendrils, weaving it in with the gentler blue. _To kill to destroy to burn _he feels the strings of red in his mind, like leads attached to the beast, ready to summon it with a sharp yank when the time comes. He lets the mental image of the colors fade, returning to his emptiness. _You will kill because you have to. To save yourself. To save others. Destroy those who seek to hurt others. Make safety by eradicating danger. Do not kill for revenge. Do not kill for gain. Do not kill for pleasure. Do not cause unnecessary pain. Do not let others suffer because of your inaction._

He repeats the words to himself, forcing himself to think about each command, evaluating them. He will not let himself fire a gun when the can no longer abide by every one of them. It is like religion, or the closest John has to one. The more distance men put between themselves and the earth, the less likely it has begun to seem that their existence is owed to a God or Gods, and even if it is so Shepard wonders if men would not have left them behind with their home planet. It is not a question that troubles him much, but he cannot deny that there are things in the universe that beg a greater explanation, or at least an attempt at understanding. This is part of the reason for his meditation. _If someone with this much power over the fates of others doesn't think about how he uses it … _Shepard doesn't know what would happen, but he can recognize the road to ruin at the end of that unfinished sentence. He stands stiffly, stretching with a gentle yawn. Then he strides over to the dresser set in the wall of the room and opens it, retrieving his father's guitar from its secured stand. The wood is good quality. _Sapele,_ John remembers, from trees back on earth.

He sits back down on the cabin floor, cradling the guitar and dropping the paper envelope from the shelf onto the deck beside him. He lays the guitar flat across his lap, twisting the first tuning key until the lowest string hangs loose and comes out of its peg. He pulls the bottom of the string out of the bridge and reaches into the envelope, selecting a new, shinier one, threads it back up to to the peg and begins tightening it. His mind strays, traveling back almost thirty years and millions of light-years to a small house in a small town in a small, rainy country where a small boy sat on his father's lap and reached his hands out for the very same instrument. John looks down at his hands now and they seem so big, so unlike the ones that he had touched the guitar with for the first time. He smiles, the back of his throat tightening, and remembers.

…

The door to Chora's Den opens and Garrus's eyes dart to the barkeep, who he is relieved to see is a different man. True to Thane's prediction, the scorch marks and blood are nowhere to be seen, and with a sudden lurching feeling Garrus remembers that the day Shepard and Wrex and he had first come in here looking for Harken was over two years ago. _Spirits, it feels like yesterday!_

Thane leans closer to Garrus's ear."Now we just have to locate our man," he whispers.

Garrus is already scanning the bar, and he instantly rules out the two comatose turians at the booth in the corner, as well as the krogan downing shot after shot of something toxic-looking, in a battle with his own personal demons. Garrus's gaze settles on the lone human patron, a man with dark skin and close-cropped hair sitting slumped over at the bar. "That's him," says Garrus, keeping his voice low. "The one at the bar. Everything about him screams 'ex-cop.'"

Thane nods, and he and Garrus approach, taking seats at the counter to either side of the man. Garrus decides to test the situation. He waves the bartender away and leans forward on his elbows, peering at the sullen face of the man. "Harris?" he inquires in a neutral tone.

"Eh?" The man in question raises his head slightly, squinting at Garrus. "Do I owe you money or something?"

From the man's speech Garrus can tell he's already a few drinks over par. He smiles at the man, and then, realizing the human might not be able to pick up on this, he changes his tone to a much warmer, friendlier one. "Come on, Harris. Don't you remember me? You aren't _that_ drunk. Well," he says, throwing in a chuckle. "Not yet, anyway. Hey," he calls to the barkeep. "Another drink for my friend. I'll pay."

Harris sits up a little more, bewilderment mixing with distrust on his face. Garrus can tell he's scanning his own foggy memory for any memory of the turian. "Do … Do I know you?"

Garrus chuckles again, clapping Harris on the back gently. "Good one. Hey, really though, I just came by to make sure you weren't taking it too hard," he says, on the basis that any man drowning himself in liquor, alone, at a place like Chora's Den must have _something_ to take hard.

Harris looks at him searchingly for another moment, then he turns away, his expression clouding over. "Bastard lawyer," he mutters.

"Aren't they all," agrees Garrus, sliding Harris his new drink as it arrives.

"It's not even that," says Harris morosely. He looks down at the stained countertop. "I don't even mind losing the flat. Shitty little place, never liked it, and the neighbors were assholes. I just … I just wish she didn't have to _go_." He seems on the verge of tears. Garrus claps him on the back again, and Harris drains half his glass in one go.

"She just wouldn't _listen_," he continues, his voice plaintive. "I kept telling her it would be alright, that I'd find more work, told her I'd make everything okay. But she said she couldn't take it. I really loved her, you know that? I really loved her." His face crumples, and Garrus wraps his arm around the man's shoulders.

Garrus imagines he's Shepard. _What would he say right now? He'd have something, some magic words to make everything seem alright for this poor fuck. _"Look, Craig, have you told her that?"

"Yes-"

"Have you really told her that? Not just when you leave and when you go to sleep at night, not when you're stressed or angry or trying to make a point. When was the last time you looked her in the eyes, and told her, just for the hell of it, 'I love you?'"

"I … "

"You gotta do it, Craig. People are apart for too long. You can't let her forget."

"She … I … but she left me, though. She went … and the lawyer, they took my house and my things and I have no _job_ …"

"Listen. You have her number?"

"Yes, of course. I was going to call it, just working up the-"

"Forget it. Throw it away. Go home, get some sleep, for spirits' sake take a shower. Then tomorrow morning dress yourself up nice, buy some flowers and go and fucking tell her yourself. Tell her you're sorry this happened, and you're going to make things right. Tell her you found a job and take her out to goddamn breakfast."

"But … but I don't have a j-"

"Go down to customs and excise. Find Yvonne Daecher, head of shipment tracking. Tell her Garrus Vakarian sent you. She'll hook you up."

"Who's Garrus Vakarian?"

"Friend of mine. She'll know who you mean."

Harris blinks at him, his bloodshot eyes moist. "I … I will. I'll do what you said. Thank you. I … I love you, man. I don't even know who you are." And with that he rises clumsily from his stool, embracing Garrus tearfully. Garrus stumbles back a step, recoiling a bit from the strong perfume of brandy surrounding the man. Nevertheless, he puts another reluctant arm around Harris, breaking away from the embrace as soon as he can. Harris doesn't seem to notice. "I'm gonna get her back," he says, wiping his nose on the back of a sleeve that has seen better days. "I'm gonna make things right. Thanks, man. I don't know what I'd—_hic-_do without you." He turns to leave and Garrus, suddenly recalling their mission, calls out to him.

"Hey, Craig, there's one thing you can do for me, though."

Harris turns around, still smiling happily. "Sure, sure. Anything I can do."

"You know anyone by the name of Emelia Jacobson?" asks Garrus, contriving to sound only vaguely interested.

"Yeah, yeah, I know her. She's the hardass bitch sergeant."

Garrus smiles briefly. "The very same. You know where I could find her outside of work? I think there's a better side to her, but you know how uptight she is on the job … " He lets the sentence hang suggestively.

"Oh," says Harris slowly, going to tap the side of his nose in a knowing manner and missing entirely. "You'll be wanting to look for her at the C-Sec midyear ball. Big fling, never been myself. Too expensive. She'll be there, all the officers are."

"Thanks," says Garrus, nodding. "Good luck with your wife."

"Good luck to you, too, with the, you know," says Harris, making suggestive motions with his hands. "In fact, you might just be in luck. I heard she likes aliens. They say she's afraid to look at a normal-colored cock!" And he staggers away, laughing as if it's the funniest thing he's ever heard.

Garrus turns back to Thane, who's looking at him with admiration. "That was a job well done, Garrus."

Garrus makes a neutral noise, sliding onto his stool again. "Yeah, it should be a lot easier to approach her at the ball. We're sure not getting anything done in her office."

Thane shakes his head. "I meant with Harris. You did a good thing, and something that I would not have been able to do."

Garrus shakes his head in amusement, thinking back to the comical Harris and his tragic plight. "I didn't think I would, either. I'm not sure why I did, but it felt … right."

"That man will make a good father some day. I wonder if he will tell stories about this day, years from now."

Garrus snorts. "He'll probably go to bed and forget all about it."

"But maybe not. You touched his life, Garrus, and you may have pushed him away from the brink of ruin. Your mate would be proud of you."

Garrus looks away. "You think so?"

"Yes."

The turian is quiet for a while. Then he turns back to Thane, a glint in his eye. "Well, good. And speaking of mating, I hope you brought some cologne, because you have a ball to attend."

…

Legion steps into the cabin uninvited, but feeling as if an invitation is unnecessary somehow, or as if perhaps one has already been extended. He finds Shepard sitting on the floor, replacing the strings in a musical instrument. His shirt is somewhere else, and Legion finds itself irrationally excited to trace over the twisting contours of the man's muscle with its eye. Scars stand out against the smooth skin here and there, like comets against a night sky. It steps down to the main floor section and sits facing Shepard, imitating his cross-legged pose. Shepard continues stringing the instrument, a _guitar_ Legion's mind tells it, _semi-hollow body with six steel strings. _It watches Shepard thread the skinny wires in and up the neck to the pegs at the very top, fastening them and tightening the key slowly until the string is in tune. Eventually he says, "Do you know about guitars, Legion?"

"I know it is a musical instrument," says Legion. Then, after a pause, it asks, "What is music, Shepard?" It knows the dictionary definition, countless numbers of them, and it knows what the geth think it is, but it wishes to hear Shepard tell it. Maybe Shepard knows things that dictionaries and the geth do not.

"It's like sound," Shepard says after thinking for a bit. "But alive. Living sound."

_Can sound be alive?_ Thinks Legion. It looks down at its hands. _Can metal be alive?_ Shepard has finished tuning the guitar. He picks himself up and Legion's eye follows him as he makes a half circle and sits down again next to the geth.

"Here," he says, and he gently, almost lovingly passes the instrument into the geth's arms. Legion holds the thing awkwardly, unsure what to do. "Like this," says Shepard, and he's suddenly behind Legion, leaning forward and placing a two hands on the guitar, his arms reaching around Legion's body. They are very warm.

"One hand up here on the neck," Shepard explains. "And one down here by the strings." Legion moves its hands next to Shepard's, trying to copy their position. Shepard moves his hands over Legion's, repositioning the geth's long, thin fingers. It can feel him smiling behind it. "Not so stiff. Like this," and he eases Legion's fingers up so that they arch over the fretboard instead of laying down flat on it. "And your thumb here, for support, but not too tight." He shows Legion how to press down on te strings, changing the length of the strings to make different notes. "Go ahead," he says, and Legion can feel the warmth of his body against its own. The fingers on Legion's right hand rise, poised over the strings, and it is suddenly afraid. Afraid that it will pluck them and nothing will come out. Afraid that it will have no life to give the sound. Afraid that something that is not alive cannot create something that is, that it will be unable to make music because it has no soul. _Does this unit have does this does _Could it be possible that it is alive? Could metal really be alive? Can sound be alive? Legion doesn't know, and the fear is eating at it. It begins to lower its finger, waiting with dread for nothing but flat, lifeless sound to come out, for this wonderful dream to be over.

It plucks the string. A note sounds, clear and undulating, echoing and vibrating through Legion's body. Behind him Shepard cries out in wonder. "The pickups! The signal from the pickups is going through you. You're the amplifier, Legion!"

The last echoes of the note die away, and Legion feels its courage building. Its fingers return to the strings, working together with its left hand now, pulling more notes out of the air. Behind it Shepard laughs happily, and Legion's eye dims a bit. It forgets just a little of where it is and what it is, the programs in its head shutting up for just a minute to listen to the sound it has created. Its hands begin to move faster, this time pulling the notes not from thin air, but from a place within itself that it did not know existed. Actually, it is the same place it feels the spark for Shepard, the same unfindable inner heat. The sound flows smoothly from its fingertips, resonating through it, up and down, high and low blending together like light, like a waterfall, like dancing flames. It could lose itself in the sound forever, never come back to the world of logic and reasoning. But it does, because it has to. After unmarked time Legion plucks the final, long note and sits back, resting some of its weight against Shepard and suddenly very conscious of what it has done.

"Was that music, Shepard?" it asks tentatively.

Legion can feel the smile behind it again. "Yes, Legion," answers John. "It was beautiful." Then he leans forward and kisses Legion gently on the side of its face. Legion is happier than it has ever been before.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

The C-Sec Midyear ball is being held in an upscale club called "BitDawn" on one of the less-obviously seedy wards. A simple extranet search yields the address of the club, several pictures of a dance floor and bar, and a self-important line of text at the bottom of the page declaring that the fête will be invitation-only.

Garrus closes the page and powers down the motel room's extranet terminal. "Alright," he says, turning to Thane. "We're in."

"We will need to acquire an invitation," Thane reminds him.

Garrus holds up his thumb and forefinger. A thousand-credit chit glitters between them. "I've got mine," he says, raising an eye plate.

Thane nods. "Of course. I was forgetting. But what will we do if someone notices us once we're inside? Surely most of the officers will know each other, and at least a few will be on the lookout for you by now."

"I know," says Garrus. "I'm counting on it. Believe it or not, I'm fairly good at playing the ruffian who gets thrown out of parties. I'm also counting on _your _ability to play the gentleman-to-the-rescue who throws _me_ out on my sorry ass."

Thane blinks slowly. "I think I can manage that."

"I know you can. This entire plan relies on you after I'm outside. If you have any reservations, let me know now. If we're gonna go through with this then I need to know you're committed."

Thane looks at his hands silently for a moment. "You think there is much at stake?"

Garrus nods grimly. "Innocents have already died here. I'm not letting any more bombs go off in my city."

Thane inclines his head in acknowledgement, taking note of the _my._ "And you're sure we cannot trust C-Sec."

"Not a chance."

Thane looks up, his deep black eyes meeting the turian's. "I have done worse things for much worse reasons than this," he says. "I will see this through."

…

Tali'Zorah vas Normandy toys with the edge of her hood, running it between her thumb and forefinger as she leans with her knuckles pressed against her mask, elbows resting on the window sill. The sensation is dulled by her suit, but it's a dullness that her people have been forced to grow used to. On the other hand, living in a world of tactile gray makes every unsuited touch a burst of color and light. _If only those moments weren't so far apart,_ she thinks, her eyes trailing across the landscape below them as it blurs by.

_Three hours left_, she reminds herself, her mind drifting back to the mission. Her eyes flick to the table her gear is set out on, but she knows everything has been checked, rechecked, taken apart, put back together, and then checked again. She turns her attention back to the window, letting her head drop to the side, leaning against the inside of her helmet and making the position feel almost natural. It's not, tohugh, and soon her neck begins to stiffen uncomfortably.

Tali straightens up. She knows from experience that three hours are too long to spend with pre-mission nerves, so she opens her omni tool with a swipe of her hand and flicks through the menu for something to pull her mind away from the nearing landing. A blinking symbol catches her attention: a new message. Legion is tagged as the sender, and the message simply says

_thank you_

Tali closes the message, a warm, tender sadness welling up in her heart. She smiles. _Legion, Legion. You're the most wonderful piece of broken machinery I've ever known. _She rests her palms on the window ledge, watching the clouds flow by like waves. _Of all the imperfect, beautiful things that exist in this universe, half of them must be going on in this ship. I wonder if there's something about war that changes peoples' minds. How else would any of this be possible? Does it really take so much horror and death to make us this way? Would a man and a machine ever have fallen in love without conditions like this? Would a geth and a quarian ever have been friends? _She looks out at the sky and, with a twisting feeling realizes the answer to that question. _No, it's not war that drew us together. Without war, we never would have been pushed apart. Without greed and fear and hate. Maybe the geth had it right all along. Maybe the reapers have a good reason for wanting us gone._

_ No,_ she thinks, after a little while. _No, that's wrong. That's wrong, and this ship is living proof of why. We have all formed bonds between each other, bonds of friendship and family and love, and I think it would have happened no matter what. That's what we stand for, and that's what the reapers want gone. I wonder if it offends them. I wonder if they look at us, running around doing nonsensical things for illogical reasons, and are frightened by it. I wonder if they envy us._

...

Twenty miles below the Normandy and countless miles away, Captain Gale Hendrickson strides down a corridor. His legs swing with slow, measured strides, his combat boots hitting the gritty steel floor with a metallic _clink _that resounds in the long hallway. A door opens ahead of him, spilling brilliant light and a flurry of snow into the hall. A man-shaped bundle of snow and cloth staggers in dragging something heavy behind it, and then stops and stands to attention when it catches sight of him. Gale steps around the bedraggled figure, nodding as he passes. "Corporal. Clean this up when you're done. I don't want a flood in here."

"Yessir," replies a voice from inside the bundle of layers. "Sir, where d'ya want th' power cells?"

"Stack them outside the ship. We may be leaving rather soon. If you see Valdez, tell him I have gone to talk to our guest. I am not to be disturbed. If I must be disturbed, as I am sure I will be, tell him to at least knock."

"Yessir."

Gale walks on down the hallway. _Clink, clink._ A door appears on his left and he stops outside of it, giving two sharp raps on the metal surface. The door retracts and Gale steps inside. The interior of the room is filled with video panels, fiber-optic cables running back and forth between them like tangled veins and arteries. Two men are sitting in chairs in front of the screens. They drop their cards and stand to attention when Gale walks in, looking slightly ashamed to be caught shirking their duties. Gale nods to them, smiling briefly. "Jameson, Bahri. At ease, gentlemen." The men smile back, relieved. Gale lets them. It's more important to have the men at their best then to have them drying out their eyes staring at snow and ice for hours on a monitor. Besides, Gale knows that monitors can't be trusted. Electronic eyes are easy to fool, and the only eyes he trusts are his own.

He crosses the room, through another door and down a much shorter hall to a mid-sized room with several small manual doors set in its walls. An armed guard stands with his back to one. Gale nods to the man as he enters the room. "Relieved, Gabriel. I'll take over now."

"Sir," says the soldier, saluting. "He's in this one, here," he says, gesturing unnecessarily to the closet directly behind him. "It was the biggest one we could find. He's restrained, lights out like you wanted. You want me to wait here?"

"No, thank you. Just outside the door will be fine."

"Yes sir," says the soldier, trotting off back down the hallway. Gale watches him go, then he picks up a chair from a corner of the room and flicks off the room's light switch.

The door to the closet opens with a gentle scrape, and as Gale steps inside the confined space he is met by the stench of sweat, fear, drying blood, and the acrid tang of urine. He lets the legs of the chair drag across the floor, producing a grating, unpleasant sound. He smiles.

Harsh breath comes from a few feet away. Gale sets the chair down and gently closes the door. He sits down in the chair, facing the outline of the man that he can feel rather than see. The closet is pitch-black, and the inured man's body heat has made it humid and warm. "Hello," he says, and his voice is smooth and mellow. The breathing from the captive picks up, but there is no reply. "I want you to tell me about your facility," he continues. "I want to know what the security detail is like, where the power lines are, all the entrances and exits, things like that. You know better than me, I'm sure."

The harsh breathing continues, hissing through the man's teeth. Gale leans a little closer. "The thing is," he says, his tone still reasonable. "You have a choice. Whether you talk to me or not is up to you. I believe in the freedom of choice. So, I'm going to let you do whatever you want to do."

"If you're going to hurt me, just do it," blurts the man through his teeth. "I can take it!"

Gale leans in closer still, so close he can almost taste the sweat running down the man's face. "No you can't," he purrs, his mouth centimeters away from his captive's ear. "Because you don't have any idea what I am capable of. Tell me, how many people have you killed?" He is met by more shallow breathing, so he bares his teeth and continues. "How many _children_ have you tortured, how many _pregnant women_ have you _raped_ with your evil little _syringes_? How many newborn babies have died at your hands, hideously deformed, born with _no brain_, all because of a little experiment. Do you think that if I put you through one _millionth _of their suffering you could take it?"

The man is panting now, drawing quick, panicked breaths through his mouth and nose. Gale can hear his heart racing. "No," he whispers. "No, you couldn't. And I can't make you. But I can do my best."

"I'll," says the man. The words get caught in his throat. "I'll, I'll tell you. Whatever you need to know."

"You'll _lie_ to me," hisses Gale. "You'll tell me what you _think_ I want to know. That's what you mean."

The man gasps for air, choking on his own fear. "I'll, I'll tell you!"

"_Lies._ You are afraid, but not of me. You fear what will happen if your corporation finds out you betrayed them."

"I—I—nnngh!" The man winces, then cries out. "Ah! I'll tell you!"

"_Lies!"_

The man writhes, and Gale can hear him struggling at his bonds. He cries out again, his voice half a scream and half a sob.

"_Tell me about the facility,_" Gale snarls.

"_Please,_" cries the man, the sound tearing out of him. "I can't _breath_, oh God, I can't breath-" And he screams, a high, animal sound that pierces Gale's eardrums. Gale lets the harsh, awful sound go on for a moment more, then he forces his anger to subside. The feeling of charged pressure inside the room ebbs slowly away, and with it fades the pale violet glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Slowly, Gale's irises begin to return to their natural color.

Gale leans back and waits for the man in the chair to regain his breath. Fresh blood mixes with the old blood now, thin rivulets dripping from the man's ears, his nose, and the corners of his eyes. After a little while he begins to breath steadily again. "The facility," Gale says mildly.

"Three entrances," chokes out the man. "One on the bottom, a garage. Another half way up, only accessible by tram. The third is on the roof. A landing pad."

"Good," says Gale patiently. "And what about security? Have you got any mechs up there?"

"No, no mechs. They didn't want the geth stuff talking to them, taking them over or something. We have some eclipse mercs for a security detail. That's all."

"Geth?" asks Gale, leaning forward again. "What is this 'geth stuff?'"

"You don't know?" asks the man, sounding puzzled. "I thought that was why-"

Gale's eyes flash, and the man reels back. "Nononono," he pleads, and Gale senses his eyes wide with terror. "Not again, please, please, please ..." He begins to cry, his chest heaving with soft, terrified sobs.

Gale waits. "Geth," he reminds his captive when the room is silent again.

"We … we found a piece of geth tech," the man stutters. "It was … broken. It didn't self-destruct like it was supposed to. Just a piece of a ship or something, but Solaris found it somehow and brought it back to this lab to see if they could use the tech in amps. They've got it up there, behind a million firewalls, and they're trying to figure out how it works. They want to use geth brain technology or whatever to synthetically engineer the part of the brain that controls biotics. They can make it as strong as they want, then put it in people."

Gale sits back in his chair. He reaches a hand inside his jacket, his fingers brushing against the metal talisman that hangs on a cord around his neck. _How can there be such evil in the world?_ he thinks, sadness and horror threatening to overcome him. He fingers the talisman, its cool touch reminding him once again of his purpose. _This must not be allowed to happen. We must continue to fight, for just this reason._ He rises, pushing back his chair. "Thank you," he says to the bleeding man. "You have been helpful."

"Wait!" cries the man. "There's more, I can tell you more!"

"I'm sure you can, says Gale absentmindedly. He stows the talisman under his jacket, feeling its comforting weight settle back against his chest. "But unfortunately, my time here is done. Do you have a name?"

"L—Leroy," stutters the man. "But please-"

"Goodbye, Leroy," says Gale, raising his palm to the man's brow. "I deeply regret that your life has led you down this path, and now it has come to an end. I wish your soul a happier incarnation upon your return to the physical realm. Perhaps you shall be a stem of grass, or a fern. Now, depart." Gale's palm glows blue, and Leroy's head snaps back. Gale turns away from the body, his heart heavy and his mind set.

…

BitDawn is one of _those_ clubs, and it's instantly recognizable to Garrus as soon as he and Thane round the corner and the entrance comes into view. One look at the gilded decorative arch and the little multi-lingual sign on a stand and the suited totally-not-a-bouncer outside tell him all he needs to know about the club. "Watch," he whispers to Thane out of the corner of his mouth, which is quite a trick for a turian. "The drinks will be free, but there won't be anything stronger then champaign, and the guy at the bar will ignore you if you ask for anything else."

"You've been to one of these before," remarks Thane.

"Oh, yeah," mutters Garrus, straightening his jacket. "Imagine a hundred of the most boring people imaginable all trying to talk to you at once about absolutely nothing. This is a political function dressed up like a dance, all the officers will be feeling each other out, hanging off of the ones with the most power and influence."

"I see," says Thane.

"Oh, you will," Garrus chuckles darkly. "Just walk around a little, see how many people take you for a captain and suddenly become your best friend in the world. Just wait, someone will start talking to you, you'll think you're really hitting it off, take her back to your place after for a glass of wine, and she's all smiles and sparkling eyes, looking at you like you're the best thing in the world and you start to think you are too, and then the next thing you know you're lying there recovering from the best sex you've ever had and she leans over and starts whispering to you about a _promotion!_"

After a not-so-slightly awkward lull, Thane tilts his head back toward Garrus. "Sore subject?"

"Yeah."

The man at the door pretending not to be a bouncer takes a momentary break from standing perfectly still to look sown his nose at Garrus and Thane. "Yes?" he says, in a tone of voice that indicates his resentment of anything that forces him to apply any degree of effort to his job.

"Yes," repeats Garrus, reaching into his jacket pocket. "We're here for the ball, obviously. Here are our invitations." Two credit chits pass from his hand to the bounder's, and the man nods at them.

"Go on in," he says, barely moving his mouth, as if even that requires too much effort. "Don't cause trouble, or I'll break something."

"Don't worry," says Garrus mildly, as he and Thane step into the ballroom. "I'm sure you'll heal."

The inside of BitDawn is decorated like some kind of winter explosion. _Actually,_ thinks Garrus as he looks around in shock and revulsion. _"Decorate" isn't a strong enough word. _Giant ice stalactites hang from the ceiling, light shining from their bases and cascading over the dim dance floor, which is covered in some kind of synthetic snow-like substance. It is as if a decorator who, presumably just after being let out of an insane asylum, was given a massive box of things labeled _winter_ and told to have at it.

Garrus and Thane push their way politely through the throngs of nervous-looking cadets and chatting officers, Garrus's eyes roaming around the slew of faces for sergeant Jacobson. "You remember the plan, right?" he whispers to Thane.

"Yes," replies Thane coolly, picking something pink off of a passing tray. He raises the strangely colored object-on-a-stick to his eye, examining it. It wobbles slightly. "What do you suppose this is?" he asks Garrus.

"How the hell should I know?" answers Garrus irritably. This place is already giving him the creeps. "Let's just find the sergeant and get me thrown out, okay?" He sees Thane raising the pink thing on the toothpick to his mouth. "Don't eat that," he warns.

Thane pops the thing in his mouth, then frowns unhappily.

"I told you," says Garrus, pushing himself up on his toes to get a better view over the crowd. "Hey, is that her?"

"Why, captain!"

Thane turns in the direction of the voice. A skinny man in a suit and an awful violet tie is making his way toward them. Thane freezes, uncertain whether to run or not, and before he can decide the man is upon them.

"Timothy Bachman. So glad to see you," says the man, eagerly pumping Thane's hand up and down. "Captain Vargis, isn't it? You taught a seminar at the academy last semester, 'personal liberties and unlawful surveillance,' yes?"

"Indeed," says Thane, struggling to extricate his hand from the enthusiastic grip.

"You know," continues the man, who Thane now sees is barely in his twenties. "I thought the lecture was _fascinating_, I really loved the part about the necessity of self-regulation and surveillance within the department mirroring surveillance of the populace."

"Yes," coughs Thane, looking for Garrus out of the corner of his eye. "I've always viewed equality as the primary priority when, um, designing surveillance procedures."

"Yes," nods the man seriously. "No one is above the law, of course. Now, as you might be aware, Henry Grimm is retiring this year, and his spot as senior analyst at the Internal Affairs office will be opening up. Since it was your class in particular that drove me to choose a career in internal affairs, I was wondering if you'd like to put in a word or two-"

"Here's two for free," interrupts Garrus, appearing just in time. "Get lost. Come on, Th- eh-hem, captain."

Once they are a safe distance away from Timothy Bachman and anyone else who might overhear, Garrus pulls Thane in and whispers into his ear. "She's over there, by the bar talking to some old bastard. Now's the time. You ready?"

…

Sergeant Emelia Jacobson is getting tired. Her sister's ridiculous heels are sending stabbing pains through her ankles, her dress is too tight, the club is too loud, and the man talking to her is too boring. She can feel herself sweating from tension. All she wants to do is get out of here as soon as is courteously possible, but she's starting to think even that might be too long.

The man in front of her has stopped talking. _He's waiting for me to say something_, she realizes, and forces her eyes to focus on his droopy face and her mouth to shape itself into a sickly smile. "I'm sorry?" she says.

"I was just saying," says the man, smiling indulgently and leaning closer than makes her comfortable. "That if we really want to cut down on crime, we should just stop allowing batarians onto the Citadel. It's quite simple, really. Batarians are at the root of over half the armed robberies in this ward, and most of them are unemployed. I say if they won't work and all they do is steal from _real_ citizens, we should send them right back home!"

Emelia's smile is beginning to hurt her cheeks. "But most of them are born here," she says, perhaps more sharply than is diplomatic. "We can't start deporting people based on race. And most batarians live in low-income areas, which have the highest crime rates in the Citadel, regardless of the species of the inhabitants. You've got your causality mixed up."

The boring man smiles condescendingly at her. "What?"

"The crime rates are high," she says, even though she knows it will only make her headache worse. "Because you have a lot of people who can't afford an education and therefore can't get a job crushed together in tightly-packed housing units."

"But my dear, you're missing the point. Those people just don't _work. _All they do is leech off of the middle class. They're a complete and utter _burden_ to our economy."

"Of course there's going to be unemployment when Citadel mandates require citizenship for enrollment in state-sponsored schools. Think about it: most batarians come from outside Council space, and when they get here they can't get well-paying jobs because they don't have the required education, and they can't get the required education because they can't pay for it and don't have the papers in the first place."

The boring man turns back to her, his eyes widening in feigned surprise. "Oh, I'm sorry. I was thinking about something else."

It's all Emelia can do not to growl at this awful boring man, so she's almost glad when he's suddenly pushed aside. Almost.

"Hello, again," says a familiar scarred face. "Enjoying yourself, officer?"

"_You_ again," says the sergeant, and her hand starts to drop to her thigh, but she knows there's no pistol holstered there. "How did you even get in here?"

"Money talks, sergeant, you should know that. I wonder what it's whispering in _your_ ear?"

"I've had enough of this," says Emelia, and she really does growl a little this time. "This is harassment. You're leaving, now."

"Not so fast," says the turian, and with two quick strides he's standing right in front of her, towering over her much smaller frame. "You're not getting rid of me like that again. Not until I've had my say."

Emelia steps back, her retreat stopped short by the counter pressing into her back. "Step back," she hisses furiously.

"No," rumbles the turian, and he reaches toward her, grabbing her arm in his taloned hand. Emelia tried to pull away, but his grip is like a vice. She looks around desperately, but no one is watching, and her boring companion has vanished. She considers attacking the turian, but she doubts her strength would prove even an annoyance to him. She's working up the courage to humiliate herself by calling for help when suddenly a thin emerald-colored hand reaches out and taps on the turian's shoulder.

"Excuse me," says a mild voice from behind the turian's back.

Emelia's attacker turns, letting go of her wrist, and then suddenly he's flying backward, landing sprawled over the bar, glasses crashing to the ground around him. Emelia raises her eyes to her rescuer, a drell in a dark fitted suit. He steps carefully around a fallen glass, stopping and performing a funny little half-bow. "Ma'am," he says gravely. "I hope you are not hurt."

"I'm fine," she says, rubbing her wrist and looking back at the dazed turian, feeling more than slightly shaken herself. "You know him?"

"I've seen him before," nods the drell. "Although I don't usually associate with drunks."

_Just a drunk, then. He knows nothing. _Emelia allows herself a sigh of relief, and turns back to the drell with a genuine smile. "Thank you," she says. "I was worried I'd have to yell."

"I'm sure you could have handled yourself," says the drell, returning her smile with a slight curving of his lips. "It was my pleasure. I do not care for that type of person."

"Me neither," agrees Emelia, finding herself strangely unable to look away from the drell's dark, gentle eyes. She forces herself to look away, feeling a rebellious pink rising to her cheeks. _Come on! How old are you, sixteen?_

"We should get out of here," says the drell, and Emelia's heart quickens. "Away from this, I mean," he says, gesturing distastefully to the mess of the bar.

_Oh, that kind of "out of here." _"Agreed," she says.

"I don't suppose you'd allow me a dance?" asks the drell, offering her his hand. His mouth twists into the same sort of near-smile, and she has the sudden urge to make him smile all the way, to make him laugh, to make those dark eyes sparkle. _Shut up_, she tells herself inwardly. But she takes the hand anyway. _Maybe one dance won't hurt. _

"I'm sorry," she says, trying not to seem as flustered as she feels. "But I don't believe I caught your name."

"Please excuse my manners," says the drell, and his eyes seem to twinkle just for her. He gives her his half-bow again. "My name is Krios. Thane Krios."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I'm back. It's short, but I'm back.**

**Chapter 8**

It was supposed to die.

Something went wrong. A misdirection, a collision with a chunk of rock or an unfriendly pocket of radiation, it doesn't know. But something knocked it off course, and it landed here. Caked in frost in the dark and silence it whirs quietly to itself, unable to heal its many catastrophic wounds but at the same time unable to complete its suicide.

It was supposed to die, but something went wrong. It sits in the dark, unable to hear or see, being fed life through cable even as it steadily bleeds out through ruptured circuits. It cannot hear or see, but it can feel the pain of a thousand mechanical failures and destroyed systems, and the shame of its own inability to fulfill its most simple function. A shower of sparks, a flash of light, and it should have all been over, its processors melted into slag and its memory gone forever. Instead, it is alive in this dark, cold place.

Geth do not feel fear, but if this one could, it would be terrified.

…

"So where are we landing, then?" Shepard rakes his fingers through his short-cropped hair, squeezing his eyes shut and blinking.

"Well," says Joker, with the drawl of someone who feels his obviously correct opinion is being unjustly ignored. "We _could_ just call ahead and drop you right on the landing pad on the roof. I mean, if you want to do things the _easy_ way. Of course, _she's_ not having it," he says, rolling his eyes and flicking a thumb toward EDI.

"If there are enemy combatants within the base," says EDI, somehow managing to affect the tone of a teacher whose patience is being tried. "Then it would be in the crew's best interests to enter undetected and assess the situation first. That is why I have suggested the tram route as the best entrance to the facility."

Shepard squints at the display. A building of colorless stone surrounded by mountainous drifts of stone, as well as mountainous mountains, sits alone on top of a relatively narrow peak. The architecture of the structure certainly looks salarian, but there are quite a few dull steel additions poking out from the original masonry. One of these is a large square landing pad on the roof of the facility. Shepard notes it is empty, but red landing lights blink faintly at the corners. Lowering his eyes to the southern side of the building, he sees a tube snaking its way down the mountain to disappear into swirling white. "Reminds me of Noveria," he mutters. "I hated Noveria."

"Yeah," laughs Joker. "Remember when you and Liara and Garrus all got stuck in that elevator?"

Shepard scowls. "Vividly."

"Well, no elevators here, commander. Not much of anybody, if the evacuation reports are right. There is a transport hub down at the base of the mountain, and we can catch the tram there. Assuming it's still operational. And assuming you'd rather spend hours in a tram car instead of just taking the shuttle down."

Shepard shakes his head at the pilot's pointed comment. "No, EDI's right, it's best to assume the facility is compromised until we know more. It's too risky to give away our biggest advantage. Besides, they'll know we're here soon enough, and if everything's fine, we'll just take a quick look around and get out. Hell, I don't even want to see whatever dirty secrets Solaris is hiding down there. Let's just do our job and leave."

Joker shrugs. "Works for me, commander. I'll get us set up for drop. You'd better decide who you want for the ground team."

"I'll take Legion, for one," says Shepard, then glares at Joker's loud cough. "Because of the geth signal," he adds, daring the pilot to make a remark. "And I'm thinking about bringing Jack, too. She knows a lot about biotics, or at least how to kill people with them. She'll be helpful if we run into any enemy biotics; it's a biotic facility, after all."

"I don't know, commander … I mean, it's pretty _cold_ down there …"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean, have you ever seen Jack wearing, well, _clothes?_"

Shepard rolls his eyes. "Come on, I'm sure it won't be a problem."

…

"What's the _problem?_"

Jack scowls darkly, pulling at the insulated fabric hugging her body. "I don't _do_ winter wonderland, okay? I feel like I'm suffocating."

"Well, would you rather be freezing?" asks an exasperated Kelly Chambers, planting her hands on her hips and giving Jack a look. "I mean, what_ever_, if you really want to go naked it's fine by me."

"Couldn't we go somewhere warm?" grumbles Jack, re-adjusting the waistband of her heavy pants. "Fuck, I'd even take one of those sickening beach resorts. As long as I don't have to mummify myself."

Kelly purses her lips. "Don't you have some kind of magic spell or something to stay warm? I mean, you can glow all purple and stuff, it has to be good for _some_thing."

"Watch it, princess," growls the biotic. "I only do one party trick, and it's called 'how far can my boot fit up your pretty little ass.'"

Kelly raises an eyebrow. "Really? Like, seriously? 'Cause that's kinda hot."

Jack hisses at her, then turns and stomps off down the hallway toward the hangar.

Shepard comes striding down the corridor from the opposite direction. He frowns in the direction of the angry footsteps. "Is something going on?"

"No, that's just jack," sighs Kelly, rolling her eyes.

"Were you able to find cold-weather gear for her?"

"Yes," says Kelly, her tone suggesting that it was no easy feat.

"Good," says Shepard, looking distractedly at the clock on his omni-tool. "We're going in in thirty minutes. Have you seen Legion?"

"He's down in engineering with Tali, I think," replies Kelly.

"I am here, Shepard," intones a synthetic voice, and Kelly jumps, letting out a startled squeak. She twists around to face the geth standing behind her. The plates over Legion's eye raise, suspiciously close to the motion of human eyebrows, but the eye itself stays fixed on Shepard. "Apologies, Yeoman Chambers. I did not intend to surprise you."

Shepard returns Legion's gaze, feeling the telltale fluttering in his chest that seeing the geth always seems to evoke. "We're heading down to the shuttle, Legion,"

…

_Strange that a ball for policemen should have security guards,_ thinks Thane as he watches Garrus get hauled out of the splintered bar by a burly krogan and a less burly human. The drell turns away from the quickly calming spectacle, focusing his gaze on the human woman holding onto his arm. "Shall we dance, madam?" he asks, pronouncing the human honorific without the aid of his translator.

The sergeant looks up, her lips parting a little to show a flash of white. "I would be glad to, my good sir," she says, soft laughter in her voice reflecting her amusement at his formality. "I have to warn you, though, I'm no dancer."

"Nonsense, _madam_," murmurs Thane, enunciating the foreign syllables again. His accent makes her giggle, and she raises a hand to cover her smile, her eyes creasing a little. _Short fingernails,_ his brain observes, drowning out the flutter the gesture causes in his chest. _I wonder if she bites them._ He shepherds her further out onto the floor, and as they make their way through the throng of chatting officers the lights begin to dim and a few odd notes waver through the air as the band tunes their instruments.

"Really, though," the sergeant insists. "I'm terrible at dancing."

"I assure you, you are not," says Thane, taking her hand and resting the other gently at her hip. "Simply follow me." The band begins to play, and a hush falls over the ballroom as the crowds begin to pair up and move out onto the floor. The first slow, drawn-out breaths of a stringed instrument resonate through the room and Thane smiles to himself. _I know this song. _He turns the smile down to the sergeant and rearranges his fingers between hers, dull green and rich brown weaving together. He begins to move, feeling the music in his motions, and the sergeant moves with him, awkwardly at first but then more naturally as the gentle melody and Thane's own smooth movements overcome her self-consciousness. As the song continues Thane almost forgets where he is, too. The mission begins to fade away, and for just a moment he feels as if he could really be here, dancing with this woman who smiles up at him as if he is actually worth something, and for a few short-lived seconds the weight pressing down on him seems to lift and real happiness darts in between his fingers. Then it is gone though, gone like a minnow flashing silver through the threads of a net, and he is once again a killer and a lier and the woman he is holding is just another objective.

…

Sergeant Jacobson feels as if she is dreaming. She vaguely remembers discomfort, annoyance, and the awful caged feeling of being stuck here in this room full of people she utterly detests. It seems like yesterday now though, a memory already fading away. _I can't be doing this_, she tells herself again and again. _This can't be real. _But the tall, gentle man she is dancing with is still there, and his skin, the color of shadows on a forest canopy, is just as real when she tightens her grip on his hand.

"I told you you could dance, Emelia," he says, his voice low and soft and thick, like rolling breakers on a beach.

"Don't call me that," she says, suddenly unwilling to be reminded of the real world. "That's what people call me at work."

"What shall I call you then?"

"You can call me Emma," she says, a hint of shyness finding its way into her voice. Nobody calls her Emma anymore. She isn't sure why she is letting this stranger touch that name, but it feels right. He feels less like a stranger than any of the other people she knows.

"_Emma_," he murmurs, and the name sounds foreign and alluring when he says it.

"How do you know my name, anyway?" she asks, voicing the question she has been avoiding. "You don't work for C-sec, do you?"

"I work as a … professional consultant. My work often requires contact with law enforcement."

"Not just C-sec, then? Do you do much work off of the Citadel?"

"This is my second visit to the Citadel in many years. I do not stay in one place for very long."

_Take me with you_, she wants to say. _Take me away from Varek and his leg-breakers, away from C-sec and all the hypocritical bullshit, away from the fear and the anxiety. _Instead of saying that, the says, "That must be nice."

He looks at her, and for a second his eyes seem to fill with sorrow. "It is, sometimes," he says quietly, and Emma wants to ask him what's wrong, but instead the song ends and the two of them are suddenly standing still, very close together on the dance floor.

In the lull between songs the clamor of conversation slowly starts up again around them. Emma meets the drell's dark, sad eyes. "Will you have to go away soon?" she asks.

"Most likely," he says, his thumb running along her palm.

She looks down, sweeps her eyes out over the dimly-lit crowd of C-sec officers and city officials. "I wish I could go away," she says, almost under her breath.

"Why should you say that?" inquires the drell, his head cocking slightly to the right. "You are an officer, you are young, and you surely have your entire career ahead of you."

"I hate it here," Emma whispers, the fierceness of her voice surprising her. "I-" She stops, looking back up her partner, who is watching her quietly. "Is somebody waiting for you, after?"

He shakes his head. "Perhaps we should find another place."

Emma smiles. "Yes. I've been here long enough. I only came because I needed to at least show up."

The drell takes her arm, pointing the way toward the nearest exit. "I am glad that you did," he says.

"I'm glad I did, too."

…


End file.
